Another Chance
by xXTheWingedOneXx
Summary: In which seven dead shinobi are reborn to aid the current generation in their coming battles, and hopefully to stop the end of the world. Uchiha Madara is unamused when he is chosen as one of the seven, especially when he's one of three who ends up in Konohagakure. Well, it's not like he had much choice; meanwhile Mito just wants to save her village and correct her mistakes.
1. Prologue 1

**Another Chance**

**A/N: I do not own Naruto, obviously. **

**So, this was an idea a had a few months ago, and I started writing. And then the current manga plot twists showed up, and I had to re-write every scene with Hashirama and Tobirama to fit their canon personalities. **

**I have this all plotted out, and it's going to be huge. I'll try to update every two weeks, so I can get it out in some sort of sane time frame.**

**Much thanks to Sikizu and Flame for beta-ing this, and especially to Flame for putting up with my obsessive ramblings and plot points every day at school.**

**Prologue:**

The two figures looked at each other. The tall woman was dressed in a white kimono, with gold trim. Her long golden hair hung all the way down her back and shielded her eyes from view, and it waved as if blown by a wind. She shook slightly, and her usually pale cheeks were streaked-the only sign of her recent mourning.

The short boy across from her slouched, hands shoved into the pockets of his skinny red jeans. He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt, which was only decorated with a red-orange spiral on the stomach. His skin was eerie, as white as a sheet of paper and covered with deep red markings, centered around a diamond on his forehead. His eyes burned a deep, inhuman red-the same color as his hair, which emulated a lion's mane. He, too, was unhappy, frowning slightly in a way that bared overlong canines.

"Shin's not going to be happy with the work that will include..." The boy said.

"Shin knows that it may be necessary. And ask him to look forward, and check to see which would have a better outcome." The woman said.

"Why not ask Kouun? This entire thing seems to be more in her district than anything else." The redhead asked.

"I did. You would probably get a better answer than I. All she would tell me was that the coin was flipping, and she smiled."

"_Wonderful."_ The boy sighed. "Tenkou...are you sure this is a good idea?"

The woman turned sharply, her hair brushed out of her face, to bring the full bore of her gaze on the boy. "Do you _have _another idea, Akkiou? _Do you? _I know you trust the boy. I do as well. But do you _really _think that _offering him some help _would go amiss? Akkiou. Our brother is coming back. We are sending a _mortal _against him with _no backup. None." _

Akkiou raised his hands in surrender. "I _know, _Tenkou. I was the one who felt him stirring. I heard the whispers of dissent first-I saw the spread happening. I was just making sure you were sure."

"I am."

"Alright, then. I'll go make preparations on my half. You have to go tell Shin what's going on and ask for his help. One question, though?"

"Yes?"

"Can I please talk to them about the whole Kurama and his siblings debacle?" He asked, widening his eyes to attempt to look innocent and adorable. Because it was him, though, all it ended up doing was call attention to the fact that his eyes would constantly change colors of red, and were also faintly glowing.

"Fine...you can handle that mistake best, anyway."

_In another place, a young teen chuckled. "The coin is tossed..." _

Uzumaki Mito opened her eyes to see that she was standing in a large white room, with six other people. She recognized her best friend and husband, Hashirama, and tried to move to him but found herself unable. Frowning, she reached out with her mind, latching on to the familiar bright emotions that he gave off to reassure herself that yes, he was there, and yes, he was alright.

She supposed it was slightly odd to worry this much, but she couldn't _stop _herself-the last time she had seen him, she had been looking at his corpse. His usually bright presence in the odd sense that had always reflected people's emotions to her was dimmed very slightly-a difference she knew to mean that he was about as happy with their lack of motion as she was.

She turned her attention to the other people in the room. Next to Hashirama stood his brother Tobirama, clad as always in his blue armor. A few paces away was Hyuuga Hikako. Mito knew the young leader of the white-eyed clan fairly well, as they had both been key players in the history of Konoha in their day. It was a dark day for the small village in the forest when she was killed in battle, both due to the loss of a level-headed politician and the effects her death had on the people close to her.

Behind her, lounging against what apparently passed for a wall in this place, was Uchiha Madara. Mito wondered if he had appeared in that position-arms crossed, lazily glaring at the world-or if he actually had freedom of movement. As he wasn't trying to murder either of the Senju, she assumed the former.

The redheaded lady sighed. She remembered a time when she and Madara had been, well, not _friends, _but at least civil to each other. Granted, he seemed to automatically discount any shinobi who was also female, but to be fair he also discounted non-clan shinobi, shinobi with any kind of functional handicap, and...actually, pretty much anyone who wasn't a Senju or Uchiha. That was simply how the Uchiha were; even the nicest she had met had sides of this, although they at least would notice if they caused offense and apologize. But after his dreams died, Uchiha Madara had, to use common vernacular, gone off the deep end.

The final pair of people in the room were less familiar to Mito. A tall man with long, spiky blond hair was looking around with sharp blue eyes. He wore a long white coat, and Mito saw the kanji for 'Yondaime' written on the back. _So the village lasted long enough for a fourth! _

...She also saw Hashirama's eyes widen and felt his presence light up at the sight of the 'Yondaime' kanji as well. She smiled slightly. Of course, he would be thrilled.

Next to the Yondaime was a shorter woman, with long red hair much like Mito's own. After a moment of confusion, Mito recognized the woman as her distant cousin Kushina-the young girl who had been a mix of pupil and granddaughter to her in the final years of her life. She had grown up into a fine young woman.

"Apologies for the restrictions placed upon you." A voice said, and Mito's head snapped around. A woman was standing in the space before them, but Mito had no warning of her appearance; at the very least, her emotional sense should have told her there was another person in the room. But it picked up nothing.

"My name is Tenkou, I am what I suppose you could call a kami or a goddess, and I have a matter of the utmost seriousness to discuss with you." the woman said. Mito's eyes narrowed. Tenkou-roughly speaking, _Queen of Heaven. _Why did she get the feeling that was a description, not a name?

"Unfortunately, time is of the essence, so while I would like to allow you to greet one another and exchange information, I am afraid that will have to wait. There is a crisis brewing in the Elemental Countries. Plans are in motion for the Juubi to return."

Mito's eyes widened in horror. While she, of course, was not old enough to know of the Juubi from her own experience, she knew the Kyuubi's power well, and according to the legends the Juubi dwarfed that. Her grandmother's grandmother had fled her small town when the island it was centered on had been thrown under the water by one sweep of the Juubi's tail. The town she founded on the shores of that sea became Uzushiogakure.

The reactions of the others were similar-Mito sensed horror and shock from every other person...except Madara. But then, ever since the death of his wife and his abandonment of the village Madara had been very hard to read. The dark cloud around him stifled all other emotional signals.

"While there is a chance that the current generation could stop it on their own, the chance is very slim, and the risk is far too great. I have a proposal to make, to help tip the odds in the favor of the Elemental Nations. I ask-not request, never request, but _ask, _that you consent to be, for lack of a better term, reincarnated as young children-ages four to six. You would grow up as any child from whichever village you are in would grow, and hopefully you would aid in the results of events in your lifetime." Tenkou explained. "You will look much as you did in life, and you don't have to say yes-but if you do not agree, I will explain the consequences of this decision. I'm sorry to be so insistent, but you all must know that the results would be catastrophic." Tenkou stopped, and Mito wondered vaguely if the woman had to _breathe. _

"So...I will ask each of you, explaining where you would go in this second life. Once there, you all have a high chance of encountering each other by the time you are roughly fifteen years of age. I cannot guarantee anything. I cannot even guarantee that the addition of you seven, should all of you agree, will result in victory. All I can do is ask."

The moment she said that, the other six people in the room disappeared from Mito's senses, leaving her alone with Tenkou.

"Apologies again for the lack of mobility in the main area." Tenkou said, as Mito found herself able to move and speak again. "But time is of the utmost importance, and it passes more quickly here than you would think. We are in a small window of opportunity for the choice to be made. Do you have any questions?"

"How is the Juubi coming back?" Mito asked immediately. Tenkou sighed.

"If I knew that, I would stop him from returning myself. Unfortunately, I do not; all I know is that in roughly ten to twelve years, he will face the ninja of the Elemental Nations. By that point, if he's back it will be too late for me to do anything. But shinobi are...different. Special. They can do wonderful and terrible things, if they so wish. Do you so wish?"

Mito paused, but really it only took a moment's thought. "I will return to the Elemental Nations, Tenkou...sama?"

Tenkou smiled. "I thought you might. You will be sent to Konohagakure no Sato, along with these." Tenkou waved her hand and the walls showed pictures of two of the other people in the first room. On one wall was Uchiha Madara, and on the other was the yellow-haired man.

"Your companions in this who know your identity will be, if they so choose, Uchiha Madara and Namikaze Minato. The latter man was a classmate and later the husband of your cousin Kushina, and he also was the Yondaime Hokage."

Mito's eyes widened at that knowledge, and she smiled. "Konoha... thank you, Tenkou-sama."

Hikako frowned as the others disappeared. Even with her Byakugan activated, she couldn't detect where they had gone. Also, with her enhanced vision, Tenkou blazed-it seemed as if she didn't _have _chakra so much as she _was _chakra. It was that, more than anything else, that convinced Hikako that this woman was telling the truth. It actually reminded her of the times she'd spied the tailed beasts, when they roamed too close to Konohagakure or her previous home in Rai no Kuni. However, unlike the red chakra that the beasts were suffused with, the chakra of this woman was a gold-white in color.

"I have a few questions to ask before I give my decision." Hikako said. "First: did the Hyuuga clan continue in the form I know it, or did it split as Haru was suggesting in later years?"

"It split." Tenkou sighed. "And the appearance of a child with the Byakugan in Konohagakure would not be taken well by the current Hyuuga. At best, you would be branded with a curse seal that would allow for remote mental torture if you broke certain rules."

"_Haru..." _Hikako snarled under her breath. She knew her younger brother was very protective of his power as the eldest male Hyuuga, but to do something that would result in the clan dividing for generations after their deaths? That was a _bit _extreme! "Alright. Why is Uchiha Madara in the group you are sending back? From what I have heard his actions were not always... well-intentioned."

Tenkou smiled. "Well, I did say this was another chance, right? I like to think that even Madara-kun can do good with the right motivation. Now-are you willing to go?"

"One more question." Hikako said. "Are you sure that this will do more good than harm?"

Tenkou smiled still. "I would not have done it otherwise. If you listen to my instructions, you will manage to save the life of a Kumo shinobi and one of your clan members just by appearing. Now, you will appear in Kumogakure no Sato, in Rai no Kuni. I will get my brother to mark you with a sign that only those who have close access to chakra akin to mine or his can see. What you must do then is seek out a boy named Killer Bee..."

Senju Hashirama smiled at the goddess. "Of course, I accept! I can't wait to see what the shinobi world is like now."

Tenkou sighed. "Unfortunately, it is not as good as you might hope. You will be placed in Amegakure no Sato."

"Amegakure? I think that's after my time...I'm assuming it's in Ame no Kuni, though? That was always a nice place, although unfortunately I was only usually in it for battles..."

"Yes. You were." For the first time, Tenkou's tone was something other than worried and kind. Now, she seemed-not _angry, _that was too far, but disappointed. "In fact, Ame no Kuni has been used as the battlefield of more powerful nations for years. This has had...unfortunate consequences for the people of Ame, and they now have leaders who are actually working in their favor. However, those leaders themselves have been subject to a terrible tragedy, and they are also being manipulated for an outside force."

As she continued to speak, the disdain hardened into something almost palpable. Hashirama blinked when he noticed chills shoot down his spine, and then his eyes widened. Killing intent suffused this entire room, and although it was milder than most killing intent-oddly so, given the power that Tenkou had displayed thus far, it was still terrifying.

Tenkou noticed his discomfort, and the killing intent subsided so quickly it seemed as if it was never there at all. "Sincerest apologies, Hashirama-kun. I did not mean to frighten you. However, it did adequately the urgency of the situation in Amegakure. I know there isn't much you can do without drawing suspicion to yourself, but just...be kind, alright? You excel at that-it isn't a too high of a duty to assign."

"So, this room is like a self-contained dimension..." Namikaze Minato was sometimes a bit too curious for his own good. "And I suppose that if you created one of these, you could nest it in a smaller area to make that smaller area much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside...and then the applications of that are pretty much endless..."

He finally noticed Tenkou staring at him, a slight smile on her face.

"Oh, sorry! Of course I'll go. I just got-"

"-carried away by the logistics of creating a place like this." Tenkou finished for him. "Before you ask, though, I don't know how I do it. Apologies. You are the only one of the former Hokages who I have seen fit to assign to Konoha-however, this may cause some unrest as your face is carved on the monument."

"Oh no, there's going to be 'Bastard Son of Namikaze' rumors, aren't there?" Minato sighed. "Well, I can live with that. I _do _have a secret son...although I'm not my own secret son...this is going to be slightly confusing, isn't it?"

"I'm sure you and all of Konoha will survive. Given your age, you'll likely be of a year with Uzumaki Naruto, as well...although I must warn you that that particular plan of yours did not unfurl with all the consequences you hoped..."

"Of course, dattebane!" Kushina grinned. "A second chance, without that stupid fox? Sign me up!"

Tenkou frowned slightly. "I think that my brother has something to say to you on the topic of 'that stupid fox', but oh well. The village that you will be sent to is Sunagakure no Sato."

"Suna?" Kushina asked. "Aww, I was hoping for Konoha, but Suna is still good. Why?"

"There's a boy there-a young jinchuuriki of the Ichibi. He will live a very lonely childhood if other measures are not taken. If you can find him, you would be an excellent friend." Tenkou said.

"A jinchuuriki..." Kushina said. No friends meant that he, likely, would have been persecuted for being who he was. Just like she had been, before a dark-haired girl on her team stuck out a hand and said "Hey, everyone else are idiots, let's work together!"

Once upon a time, Uchiha Mikoto had saved her life. It was only right that she save another person's.

The two sides of Senju Tobirama were in conflict. The larger part of him was insistent that he should simply deliver his decision to Tenkou and get this over with. The rest of him was determined that he not leave this room before he figure out how it was made, what it was made out of, and how he could possibly do that himself.

"Apologies, but I don't know how I create these." Tenkou said. His eyes widened, startled.

"Do you have the power to detect thoughts?" He asked. She smiled slightly, shaking her head.

"No-I know of no being that can hear the thoughts of others as a matter of routine. I could in all likelihood possess you and in that way become aware of your thought processes, but I would never do that to a person. Possession is, from what I am led to understand, highly unpleasant, especially when it is done by a being such as myself. No, you are just a type of mind that I am familiar with-it was easy enough to guess your queries." Tenkou said. Tobirama filed that bit of information away for further use.

"In any case, I have decided to accept your offer." Tobirama said.

"I thought so. You will go to Kirigakure no Sato, which is currently going through what could be described as a rough patch in it's history. However, everyone knows that the rough patches are the places it's best to be, in order to learn which people it is good to have on your side and who it is wise to watch. I credit you with enough strength and intelligence to survive in addition to the political savvy that it would take to use it to your advantage."

"...I see." Tobirama said. "I don't suppose that you could tell me what type of a 'rough patch' Kiri is facing? The last I knew of them, Houzuki Zangetsu was still Mizukage, and he still had that infuriating clam summon with the genjutsu properties. I could never learn how he managed it, either." He sighed.

"I'm afraid that I cannot tell you what Kiri is experiencing-I only tell details that will be immediately urgent or that need to be said to convince you." Tenkou sighed. "That was the bargain that I made in order to give you this option."

"No."

"Really?"

"Absolutely not."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm damn well sure." Madara scowled. 'Why on earth would I aid Konoha?" _Especially help them survive my own plan?_

Tenkou sighed, turning away. "The rationale my brother would give would probably be 'You broke it, you fix it." But I don't think that you really thought your plan through. The Juubi is not merely a toy for you to use as you see fit. You assume, as so many have assumed, that the tailed beasts are not capable of higher intelligence, and neither is the Juubi. You are wrong, and he is playing you for a fool."

Madara glared at her back. "You are the fool if you underestimate my power. I am easily the equal of my ancestor the Rikudou Sannin. The tailed beasts are mere chakra constructs, as every shinobi with sense knows. I don't expect someone like you to understand my plan."

"By 'someone like you' do you mean a non-shinobi, a woman, or someone who was not an Uchiha?" Tenkou asked. "Because I can think of quite a few points against each accusation. I predate the shinobi arts altogether, but that does not mean I am ignorant of them. I appear in the guise of a woman because that is the form that people expect me to take-in terms of my self, I do not see myself as any distinct gender. And about not being an Uchiha-" She turned to face him now, and Madara actually found himself taking a step back.

Tenkou's hair, for the first time, was out of her face, revealing her eyes. Her blazing, narrowed Rinnegan eyes.

"Who do you think gave your clan it's power, little Madara-kun? Your power comes straight from the Rikudou, and let me tell you, you have a long way to go before you ever catch up with Aimaru-kun. In all likelihood, you never will. But here's something you didn't know: Rikudou no Aimaru was my son. Each of his three children got a gift from me, through my power. Great healing ability went to the Senju, and two different Blessed Eyes went to the Uchiha and the Hyuuga."

"The Hyuuga were no descendants of the Rikudou." Madara said, feeling more and more backed into a corner. What this woman said could not be true-but how would she, clearly a non-human entity herself, have the Rinnegan? And if the Rikudou-Aimaru?-had divine heritage, that would make a lot of sense...but no, she had to be lying. She _had _to be. There was no way this naive fool was the mother of the Rikudou.

"How little you know your own history." Tenkou sighed. Her hair fell back in its place, as if the eyes behind it didn't exist at all. "Rikudou no Aimaru had three children-first the twins Uchiha and Hyuuga and then the boy Senju. The daughter, Hyuuga, wanted no part of her brothers' quarrel and left Hi no Kuni for Rai no Kuni." She waved her hand, and a picture bloomed on the walls.

A tall man with blonde, spiky hair and rinnegan smiled proudly at three children. One, a boy, had spiky black hair and red eyes, and held a ball of fire. A girl, in the center, had long, black hair and white eyes, and she pointed toward the sky. The third, a smaller boy, had short brown hair and held in his hands a small plant.

"In later years, all three clans would return to the same place, Konohagakure no Sato. But the Uchiha and the Senju would have already begun their feud, and their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren would only exacerbate it. This upcoming generation might be the last chance the world has to see the blood of Rikudou no Aimaru live in harmony."

She sighed. "But that chance for peace-a chance for everyone in this world to win-means next to nothing to you, doesn't it? You still don't even believe who I am. Very well, I will offer proof. That Sharingan of yours-can you activate it?" She asked.

Madara scoffed. Of course he could activate the Sharingan, he'd been able to since he was a child! Since-neverrmind. What mattered was that he could. He channeled chakra to his eyes...and nothing happened. He repeated the procedure, unnerved. For the first time in over a hundred years, his Sharingan would not spring to attention.

"Is it not working?" Tenkou asked. He glared at her.

"What did you _do?" _He snapped, and Tenkou noticed that he was shaking. The inability to access that power had utterly dissolved his composure.

"As I said, I bestowed upon each branch of the Rikudou's line a power. I give, and I can take away. Do not worry-it isn't permanent, although I do think that I will be retracting your use of Mokuton and Rinnegan. Neither of those were yours to begin with, and I honestly believe that you would do better without them. Now, can we talk like civilized people?" She asked.

Madara nodded, jaw clenched, and the mother of the Rikudou sat and beckoned him to as well. After a pause, he did. It would be unwise to antagonize the person who could deprive him of all his most useful tactics in the blink of an eye.

"Very well. I can tell you do not wish to participate in this chance. That is your choice to make. However, because I am of all things slightly biased _toward _you, I will give you some idea of the effects of whichever choice you will make." Tenkou smiled.

"The first option is if you do not join this will happen then, I am sorry to tell you, will be exactly and utterly nothing. I do not mean this as mercy." Tenkou said, seeing the look of disbelief cross Madara's face.

"You clearly misunderstand me when I say 'nothing.' What I mean is that, regardless of your plan's success or failure, you will one day die, or you will remain dead. After your death...there will be nothing. There will be no reunion with your fallen loved ones. There will be no light or no darkness. There will be no power to seize, and no people who will applaud. In the land of the living, you will in time be forgotten, as no jutsu will last forever." Tenkou stopped, letting that sink in.

"And I will be left to explain to Uchiha Izuna why his beloved aniki, who he has spent over fifty years waiting for, cannot come to meet him ever again. I will have to tell him that his brother left Konoha, stole the Mokuton of Senju Hashirama, and secluded himself from the world, as he planned to resurrect the Juubi. I will tell of how he planned the corruption of young Uchiha Obito and my Nagato. And what will Izuna think then? What will he think of the things you have seen, have done using his eyes? You will never have to see the look on his face when he is told. That is the mercy of nothing. But you will know. You will know how he must feel, and what he must think, and you will continue with the knowledge of how you will never explain to him why you did what you did. Madara-kun-is the world worth the look on Izuna's face? The betrayal in his eyes, your eyes? Is it worth the tears he and your mother will shed at what you have become?"

Madara's face showed no emotion, but Tenkou knew that that did not mean that there was none there. She had spent millennia perfecting the ability to read Shin's emotions-Madara stood little chance.

"But." She said, and he did look up at that, and somewhere, deep in the eyes that belonged to his little brother, was a seed of hope. "That is not the only option. You could agree to my bargain. You could live another life in Konoha-a life where you are not stigmatized by the names of Uchiha and Madara. You could become a great hero-and there is always a dire need for great heroes in the shinobi world. You could be a leader of people, just like you always dreamed, and hear them cheering your name not due to any genjutsu, but because they honor you as their leader. You could create a world of true peace, where Yin and Yang coexist in harmony. And, after that life had finished, you would join your family here. You could finally greet Izuna and your mother, and your other brothers. And you could look back, knowing that your name would be honored for generations as a hero."

Silence reigned for a few minutes.

"Well, when you put it that way, what choice do I have?" Madara asked, standing. "I'll take your chance, kami. But if I hold my end of the bargain, you had better hold yours."

"If you mean guaranteeing that you will be a hero, I am fully confident that your own actions will do that. Be it villain or hero, you were not born to be a normal man." Tenkou said. "But you _will _uphold your end of the bargain, won't you? Because if you aid your plan's completion, if you think that you can play me for a fool, than you can say goodbye to those eyes of yours, forever. Mangekyo, Sharingan, even normal eyesight...scattered like ashes on the wind. Do not cross me, Uchiha Madara, and I will not cross you. Farewell and good luck."

**Please review!**


	2. Prologue 2

**A/N: I do not own **_**Naruto.**_

**Here's the end of the prologue—after that, we actually get to see the seven interacting with other people. **

**Thanks still go to Flame and Sikizu for their beta-reading and constant support, and thanks to all of you who favorite, reviewed, and followed this story; I hope this doesn't disappoint. **

"Alright, one more second." The seven found themselves in another room. Unlike the white room that was there previously, this one had flickering red walls. In its center was a young teen, at least in appearance. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt with a red-orange spiral-much like the symbol of the Uzumaki Clan-on it, and skinny red pants. His hair was a crimson lion's mane, and his eyes were the same as the walls-cycling through every shade of red, never stopping. He did not look happy.

"Okay, you guys. Hi or whatever, I'm Akkiou, and I have a serious bone to pick with you. YES, I get that Juubi was terrible. Trust me, I know that better than you do. And yeah, Kurama and his siblings were destructive. So I can see why you would seal them away."

His eyes paused, on a deep shade of red that was nearly black. "But _assuming they were only barely sentient and not explaining what you were doing and sealing them away without any provisions for their comfort?_ No WONDER they all became semi-homicidal! I just recently got Kurama-kun's Yin back, and it's taken me four YEARS to get him to anywhere near the level of decency he was at when he was a kit! I shudder to think of what happened to Shukaku-chan, she was always close enough to flying off the handle already. And a _kettle? Really? _Oh right, none of you are from if you go there, check the jinchuuriki's seal. Trust me. I don't think Suna knows how to seal beasts properly, given their track record."

He paused to breathe. "But still. Kurama. He's actually a decent guy if you take the time to _listen _to him, which of course none of you ever did. Sure, it will take moving heaven and earth to get him to admit that he can stand your presence, but that's just how he is!"

"Are you...talking about the Kyuubi?" Minato asked. Akkiou paused, covering his face with his hand.

"I knew this. I'm not going to murder all of you. I knew this. I'm not going to murder all of you. Deep breaths. Okay." He removed the hand as a collective chill ran down every person in the room's spine. Mito suddenly realized that the air was filled with a very suppressed, diluted killing intent, as if the walls and air themselves wanted to rip them to shreds.

"The biju, as you know them, have _names. _Nobody ever bothered to ask them. _Ever. _How would you like it if you went through life fighting battles you didn't care about for people who never asked you if you wanted to fight, and none of them even knew your name?"

He let that sit for a moment, and then continued. "Ichibi no Shukaku. Nibi no Matatabi. Sanbi no Isobu. Yonbi no Son Goku. Gobi no Kokuou. Rokubi no Saiken. Nanabi no Choumei. Hachibi no Gyuki. Kyuubi no Kurama. In case you were wondering. Don't forget it. And on that note, Shin told me to get one of you to look after Kurama's Yin. He thinks that you guys might want him on your side. Well, I for one was against the idea of ever giving any of the Rikudou's children to a human ever again, but I was outvoted. So, who wants to be a jinchuuriki?"

There was a moment of silence, and Kushina and Mito exchanged glances. If what Akkiou said was right, they had been the ones to massively screw up in regards to the treatment of the Kyuubi-Kurama. It was the simple logic that every shinobi who had ever been in command of a team knew: if you make a decision that was wrong, if at all possible you take the fall for it. Mito nodded to herself, and Kushina raised her eyebrows.

"I will." Mito said. Hashirama half-turned to look at her, but she smiled at him and he relaxed. "If what you say is true, then the treatment of Kurama is my own fault. As his first jinchuuriki, I should have set a good example for the following ones."

"I knew I liked you for a reason, other than the whole Uzumaki thing." Mito raised an eyebrow. _What Uzumaki thing? _"Alright, applause for the brave volunteer everybody! Don't actually applaud. I'll seal him, alright? Don't give me that look, I might look like a wet-behind-the-ears bratling but I'm old enough to be your great-great-great-grandfather." He smirked to himself, and his fangs showed. "Alright, where are you...Kurama..." He sighed, disappearing for a moment.

"I wonder why it's only Kurama's _Yin?" _Mito frowned. There was a slight cough from the Yondaime-Minato.

"That...might be my fault." He said. "I don't think I have time to explain the circumstances, but it was an emergency and the only way I could think of to fix it was to seal half of the Kyuubi- Kurama-and myself into the stomach of the Shinigami and sealing the other half into...well." Minato sighed. "I sealed the Yang half into my son. Don't say anything, it was an emergency, someone had taken control of Kurama, Kushina was dying, and I wasn't going to come out alive anyway.'

'Took control of a biju?" Tobirama's eyes narrowed.

"It wasn't me, Senju." Madara scowled.

"Name one other person with the power to do that, then."

"I don't know, your brother? For all I know, there could be a whole kekkei genkai dedicated to controlling demons."

"I'm _sure_." Tobirama narrowed his eyes. "But how many of them would want to attack Konoha?"

"I'm sure that all the ones who came into contact with your marvelous tact and diplomacy would love to reduce that hellhole to a literal hole in the ground-"

"I can't leave you people alone for a minute, can I?" Akkiou had rejoined the group and was glaring. "Uchiha, Senju, shut up and play nice. You only have a few more minutes before you get an eight-year break from seeing each other. Act your age." He sighed, and Mito noticed that there was a large, reddish figure behind him. When she tried to look directly at it, though, it blurred and became indistinct. _Oh, the Yin chakra. No wonder it's hard to see. _

"Alright, let's get this over with. Where did I put that seal?" the red-haired boy fumbled around in his pockets for a moment, before pulling out a piece of paper. "Nope, wrong one." A few more seconds and he found it.

Mito looked at Akkiou again. You could almost mistake him for a genin sometimes, she thought, but then you would see his eyes. No human had eyes like that. And certainly no genin would have possession of a seal like the one he was adding a few details onto.

"There we go. Alright, Kurama, get over here." The red figure moved forward, and Akkiou placed the seal on it's head with surprising care. There was a flash of light, and the figure disappeared. The seal's lines were now glowing blood-red.

"Okay, where do you want the seal? Forehead's too obvious...stomach or back?" Akkiou asked, holding the smoking paper. "Choose quick, okay?"

"Stomach.' Mito decided. She wanted that thing where she could see, and hopefully study, it.

"Thought so." Akkiou slapped the seal on her stomach, where it sank through her clothes. Mito braced herself quickly, as the sensation of her whole chakra system warping itself to incorporate a new massive source. However, there are some things that bracing doesn't do much to help out, and she ended up doubled over, clutching her abdomen.

After a quick moment, she felt an arm wrapping around her, and a hand rubbing circles on her back. She relaxed, knowing who it had to be even without her sixth sense. "It's not as bad as last time..." She attempted a smile.

"That really isn't saying much.' Hashirama said. "Do you need-"

"Your healing jutsu doesn't work when it comes to basic changes in the chakra network." Mito said. "We tried last time, remember?"

"...second time lucky?"Hashirama joked weakly. Mito smiled.

"It's almost gone-there we go." She said, straightening back up. "That was...significantly quicker than last time. It could be the fact that it was only half of Kurama's chakra, or that seal..." Hashirama's arm remained wrapped around her in a half-hug, which she returned.

"Alright, there was one more thing. Who was the Hyuuga headed to Kumo?" Akkiou asked.

"That would be me." Hikako stepped forward. Akkiou blinked.

"Oh...white eyes, right. Ugh, why do there have to be so many different eyes? Sharingan, Byakugan, Rinnegan, they all look the same to me. And they're all _annoying._" Akkiou scowled. Mito hid a smile at the indignant outrage that both Hikako and Madara exuded.

"Anyway, there's a jinchuuriki there who either has the ear of the Raikage or will in a few years. I need to mark you so that he will pay attention to you, and Tenkou's already been over this, right? Well, anyway, any descendant of mine or hers will be able to see this, but it will be very faint unless they're a jinchuuriki or are specifically looking at chakra...and even then, there are so many weird seals on people in the Elemental Nations that all they'll probably do is pay a bit more attention to you. The biju will know what it means." Akkiou said.

He bit his thumb to draw blood, and swiped it in a spiral on Hikako's forehead. There was a pause, and then the spiral glowed so brightly that Mito had to shield her eyes and turn away. When she looked back, it had subsided to a dim light. "This also-let's see, you seem decent, so I think that I'm also going to put a bit of my chakra in your secondary chakra network-the one powering your Byakugan. It should give it a bit more power, if I've done my calculations right." He stepped back. "Okay, off you go!"

The area around them dissolved into blackness.

It was raining in Konohagakure no Sato. Water hammered on the roofs of the houses and turned the dirt roads into mud, to the irritation of anyone stuck outside. Unfortunately, Team 15 was on that list. The three soaking genin were plodding along the road to Konoha, their slightly less despondent sensei taking up the rear.

Just when Konoha came into view, one of the genin stopped. The puppy next to her was snuffling at the ground. Frowning, the girl inhaled as well.

"What do you smell, Hana?" Uchiha Kita asked her genin. Hana bit her lip.

"Um...there's someone out there." She pointed a ways off the road. "The scent's not moving and hasn't for a while, and it's not a ninja. A...kid? A little kid, a girl." Kita nodded. "Alright. Hana, you come with me-Yugao, Hayate, you can go home now. Mission's over, good job to all those involved. Meet me at the training ground tomorrow."

Hana and Kita picked over the ground, until Kita found the child that her genin had smelled. It was a small girl, no more than four, covered in mud. She had startlingly red hair, and appeared to be unconscious.

"I'll take her to the hospital." Kita decided. "You go home and get dry-I don't need anyone getting sick this close to the chuunin exams."

It was rare that it snowed in Kumogakure, and the two chuunin on patrol duty had mixed feelings about it.

"Patrol in the snow...this_ burns_..." Atsui grumbled, shivering. Samui shot him a look.

"Grow up, this stuff is cool." Samui snorted. "If it annoys you that much, I can do the patrol on my own."

"...what's that?" Atsui asked, sidetracked from the argument by a small figure. He hurried over to see a little girl, around five, curled into a small ball on the ground. "Oh...geez, she doesn't look too hot...Samui, there's a kid here!"

Samui frowned. "I can see that. Come on, let's get her to the hospital. Look at her-she looks sick or something."

In Konoha again, this time in a small, sunny clearing in the forest. Umino Iruka sighed. being a genin was not all fun and games, obviously. Days off like this were few and far-between, so he'd used the time to get a long walk in.

However, it was soon to be unceremoniously interrupted. Iruka blinked as the clearing he was walking in was shown to have another inhabitant. A small boy was slumped under a tree, covered in dirt and alarmingly thin. His only real noticeable feature was his spiky yellow hair.

Iruka frowned. The kid had nothing on him that suggested his origins, but he'd clearly been alone for a long while. In any case, he'd better get to the hospital as soon as possible. He bent down, picking the boy up, and began carrying him towards Konoha.

Thankfully, there was no sandstorm in Sunagakure. Baki sighed as he followed the Kazekage's six-year-old daughter as the girl ran through the streets of Suna, intent on causing trouble of some sort.

"Hey!" Temari's voice said from ahead of him. "Hey kid, are you okay?" She was looking at a small girl, who was curled into a ball in a small alley. "Kid?"

Baki frowned. It was generally unwise to be outside without more protective covering than just a tattered shirt and shorts, especially in a place where sandstorms did strike frequently. Not only that , the girl had a very bad sunburn starting on the side of her face that was exposed.

"I'll take her to the hospital. Temari, you stay here, alright?"

"Sure!" Temari said, the grin on her face saying in no uncertain terms that she would do no such thing. Baki sighed. Well, at least she hadn't started shinobi training quite yet. She'd be even worse when she actually learned stealth.

There was nobody in Kiri to notice the white-haired boy slumped in a cave for many hours. The mist outside was thick, and the small hollow was easy to overlook. Given the state of Kirigakure, this was probably for the best.

Yuki Haku, though, was quite good at seeing things that other people had overlooked. You had to be observant, if you were a six-year-old orphan with a kekkei genkai in Kiri. When he saw the cave, a tired smile passed across his face. Finally, somewhere to _rest..._

Slipping into the cave, he jumped when he saw the other boy. He bit his lip, wondering if he should leave, but the other kid wasn't that much older than he was. If he didn't show off the Hyoton, he should be alright. Nodding to himself, he settled against the opposite wall and closed his eyes, falling asleep quickly.

It was, of course, drizzling gloomily in Amegakure no Sato. The streets were mostly quiet and lifeless, the villagers safe inside their houses. One resident, however, walked the streets, her amber eyes watching everything. Amegakure's angel was ever-vigilant. Never again would the small village be taken by surprise.

As the woman turned onto a small side-street, she saw a little figure huddled against a wall. Frowning, she stepped closer. It was a little boy, around five or six years of age. His short brown hair was dripping water, and he shivered in his sleep. Konan frowned, moving to pick him up. No child should be left alone in that condition.

The medics at the newly-rebuilt hospital of Amegakure were surprised when the blue-haired woman entered the building, carrying a small figure.

"He was found in the streets." She informed them. "Do what you can for him-I will check on his condition later."

"Hai, Angel-sama!"

Winter had hit Konohagakure, and while the mostly temperate village was sheltered from the winds, the cold was still bitter. All in all, Uchiha Itachi thought, it was definitely not a night for a boy as small as this one to be outside alone. The ten-year-old Uchiha bent to look at the child curled against the wall. He had to be about Sasuke's age-in the darkness, he even looked somewhat like Sasuke.

Frowning, Itachi picked up the child. He was expected home quickly, but that could wait for the short amount of time it would take to get this child to the hospital. When he was holding the boy, Itachi noticed that he was not sleeping soundly-his face was twisted and upset, and he was muttering something under his breath.

Itachi sighed. It was a terrible thing, he thought, that such a young child be too troubled to even sleep soundly. He ignored the fact that he had not gotten an untroubled night's sleep for many years-that was different, he was different.

-END PROLOGUE-

**Please, review!**


	3. Chapter 1

**With this, the first few chapters of the real story begin. **

**A/N: I am neither male nor Japanese, and I lack the ability to draw. So not Kishimoto.**

**Notes: This begins a series of chapters showing what happens in each village between when the kids arrive and when they become ninja. Bear in mind that each narrator cannot be entirely trusted—they all see things in a slanted way due to their experiences.**

CHAPTER ONE: KONOHAGAKURE

Uzumaki Mito regained consciousness slowly. She kept her eyes shut, feeling out her surroundings before she did anything. Her main chakra pools were much smaller than they had been, so by her judgement she was a very young child. However, the Kyuubi-no, _Kurama-_was still present, a mass of chakra that was linked to her main pool by the seal.

Carefully, she reached out further. There were a lot of people around her, a disturbing amount of them worried or distressed. However, there were also many calm signs, ones she recognized as the feeling of people who were trying to help others. Alright, she was likely at the hospital. That was probably good-if she had found an unconscious, unknown child, she would have brought them there as well.

But that was beside the point. She couldn't be _Uzumaki Mito _in this life-the idea was laughable. However, the Uzumaki red hair was very distinctive, so she had to create a story that, while seeming plausible coming from a child, would hold up.

Of the families in Uzushiogakure, the Kinyomi family had often married into the Uzumaki, enough so that red hair was fairly common there as well. And it was possible that perhaps one of the Kinyomi escaped the destruction of Uzushi. Given that she had been an old woman when Uzushi was destroyed...perhaps the escapee had been her grandfather. That could work. Granddaughter of an Uzushi shinobi, parents killed by missing nin. That was believable enough. as for a name, Kinyomi...Shizuka. She had always liked Shizuka as a name. That decided, she opened her eyes.

"Oh, you're awake!" A nurse nearby said. "Here." She handed the redhead a glass of water, which the girl took and drained. In all of her analysis, she hadn't noticed how thirsty she was. After she was finished, the nurse took the glass back. "What's your name? How old are you?"

"'m Kinyomi Shizuka, 'n I'm four." Shizuka, as she resolved to think of herself from then on, said. "Wha's your name?" It was difficult, trying to speak like a small child. She sighed to herself, knowing that she would have to do it for quite some time.

"Very nice to meet you, Shizuka-chan. My name is Yamanaka Aoko." The woman, Aoko, smiled at the little girl.

"Tha's a pretty name." Shizuka smiled. "Where'm I?' She knew the answer, but she couldn't exactly say that she did.

"You're in the village of Konohagakure." Aoko told her, moving to clear away the glass. "Where are you from, Shizuka-chan?"

Shizuka frowned. "'m not from a village. Mom and Dad an' grandda an' I lived in the forest." She said. "Oh! But Grandda had a shiny band like yours. Just no pretty leaf on it, jus' a spiral. But Grandda went to sleep las' summer." She frowned. Aoko's eyes widened.

"Why are you here, Shizuka-chan? Where are your parents?" The Yamanaka asked, frowning as the girl's face crumpled.

"The-the bad men got them. The men with slashed bands. They-it was night-an I ran for the road an I just kept running..." Shizuka was very good at, among other things, inducing moods in herself. Now she pulled her mood down, concentrating on a sequence of terrible things that she had seen in order for her reaction to be convincing. Aoko sighed, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"I'm so, so sorry, Shizuka-chan." She said. "But you're safe here, and in good hands, and the bad men cannot reach you here. Shinobi like me and like your grandfather will stop them."

Shizuka blinked up. "Shinobi..." She smiled. "Then I want to be a shinobi too."

A day later, when it was clear that Shizuka was healed, she was moved to one of the orphanages within Konohagakure. After some debate, she was placed in the orphanage where shinobi orphans went-those whose parents had died as ninja. When Aoko was asked why, she replied that young Shizuka was dead-set on becoming a shinobi, like many of the kids were, and it would be good for her to meet friends with a similar goal.

Shizuka was shown her room, where she'd be staying with three other girls. Once she'd claimed one of the bunk beds, she headed to the main room. Most of the children there were older than she was, and she contemplated just finding a book and sitting in the corner. That always saved time, and she needed something to do.

Wait...there was a kid her age! Great! It was a small boy with frighteningly yellow, spiky hair, playing with blocks...actually, familiar yellow spiky hair. Didn't the Yondaime-Minato-say something about a kid? And the boy definitely had Kushina's face...

She hurried over, plopping herself down by the boy, who looked up. He blinked once, and then broke into a large grin. "Hi! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo! What's your name?"

"Kinyomi Shizuka. It's nice ta meet you, Naruto-kun." She said. Naruto smiled, pushing a block over to her.

"Wanna build something?"

"Sure." Shizuka smiled at the waves of happiness waving off of the little boy. Why were little kids so much opener with their feelings? Certainly no adults had the same happy cheer that children had often. Of course, many children when she was a child herself had been warriors, but once she was older and living both in the Golden Age of Peace and in the years afterward, she saw the innocence of children becoming more and more apparent and beautiful. It would be great to see it again.

She and Naruto had begun building a semi-accurate house with the blocks when one of the caretakers noticed them. Shizuka blinked as she noticed a burst of shock and then surprising hostility from him, before she was picked up.

"Shizuka-chan, you don't want to play with that boy." The well-intentioned guy said. "He causes trouble, don't you see? He's not like the other children. Look, over there-"

_What? What the hell did he mean by that? _Shizuka glared at him. It was likely because Naruto was a jinchuuriki, but in that case, did they want him to become a mental case? She remembered Kushina's rage at a young age at how the adults who knew about her secret would treat her, and that was only a few select people. It appeared that Naruto was getting this level of prejudice from _everyone. _

"But_ why?" _She demanded, throwing her energy into simulating a child's tantrum. "I _like _Naruto-kun! He isn't _boring! _He's _nice!" _She wriggled free of the man's grasp and ran over to Naruto, sitting next to him and determinedly picking up another block.

The darkening of the caretaker's feelings was totally worth the sudden happiness that Naruto shone with, smiling at her much like Kushina used to. Shizuka smiled back, helping Naruto build.

Summer passed. The caretakers tended to look down on Naruto, and Shizuka by association, but they seemed to be alright with Shizuka on her own. Naruto was, Shizuka discovered, a ridiculously happy child. A good portion of the kids had picked up on the antipathy directed toward him and avoided him, but he continued to smile and laugh like nothing was wrong.

It was heartening.

As the seasons changed, Shizuka kept an eye out for Minato or Madara, but for six months there was no sign of either. She shrugged, chalking it up to there being multiple orphanages in Konoha. She was only placed here because she mentioned that she was going to be a shinobi, after all.

However, one day as winter descended on Konoha a small child joined the orphanage. Shizuka noticed him immediately, as a familiar dark cloud covered his emotions. She noticed that it had lifted somewhat since she'd last seen him, though-other emotions were now detectable, though obscured.

Shizuka hung back for a second, unsure of how to act, but Naruto had no such reservations. Grabbing her by the hand, he towed her over to the spiky-haired boy. "Hi! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo, and that's Kinyomi Shizuka! She's nice, but kinda weird! What's your name?"

Shizuka lamented the fact that her child's face didn't have the fine motor control to raise only one eyebrow.

"...I'm Shinsei Kotaka." The boy said, seemingly confused by Naruto's cheerful friendliness. Shizuka wondered how many non-warrior children he had met. Sure enough, the moment that Naruto looked away, Kotaka looked at Shizuka with such an expression of incredulity that she had to hide a smile.

"It's just the way he is." She mouthed. This did not seem to solve any of the dark boy's confusion. Oh well, he'd learn soon enough.

Naruto proceeded to show Kotaka around the building, avoiding dirty looks. Just like with Shizuka, the caretakers tried to separate them, but Kotaka just folded his arms and scowled with the look of a child who wouldn't be moved. Kotaka didn't say much other than his introduction, and occasionally a 'yes' or 'no.' In contrast, Naruto was thrilled to have someone else to talk to. He chattered on, occasionally turning to Shizuka to support a point or provide an anecdote.

Near the end of the tour, Kotaka caught Shizuka's eye and his hands flashed in a series of signals. _Meeting. Tonight, midnight. _She nodded. It was best to converse and plan, and she was frankly curious as to why Madara would come back to a village that he had named a hellhole.

When midnight came, Shizuka slipped out of her room, sneaking into the abandoned main room. Sure enough, Kotaka was already there. His sharingan blazed in the darkness, but Shizuka was vaguely relieved to see that it was not in Mangekyo form. Quite apart from the fact that the Mangekyo was incredibly destructive and powerful, Madara was always much harder to reason with when he was using it. If she was spending a life in the same village as Uchiha Madara, as an ally of his no less, she really wanted him to be reasonable.

"Mito-san." He said, inclining his head.

"Madara-san." She replied. The silence grew for a moment, and Shizuka sighed. "Alright, Uchiha. I know you don't like me, and after certain events I don't like you much either. However, we are going to be working and living in close proximity to each other for the next eight or so years at least, so I see no point in being hostile."

Kotaka frowned. "What are you proposing, Uzumaki?"

"A ceasefire, if you could call it that." Shizuka said. "Just...no fighting, a minimum of passive- aggressive verbal attacks-and don't look at me like that, you know you do it-and a basic attempt to be civil to each other, alright? I'm not saying we have to be friends. We just shouldn't be enemies."

Kotaka narrowed his glowing red eyes for a moment, before nodding. "I suppose that would be acceptable. Now, that boy-Uzumaki-is a relative of yours?"

"Kushina-chan's son." Mito explained. Seeing Kotaka's confused look, she elaborated. "Uzumaki Kushina is a distant cousin of mine who was brought from Uzushi in its final years to serve as the next jinchuuriki for Kurama. We were quite close when I was old and she was young, and apparently after my death she married Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage and one of the shinobi who is supposed to be joining us here in Konohagakure."

"Then I presume that the young Uzumaki is the current Kyuubi jinchuuriki?" Kotaka asked.

"It seems that way." Shizuka responded. "That would also explain the severe antipathy that a good number of the caretakers here seem to have towards him-there is an unfortunate tendency for people to see jinchuuriki as monstrous demons."

"Possibly because they are, in fact, containers for monstrous demons?" Kotaka drawled. Shizuka glared at him.

"Do not speak of what a jinchuuriki is until you have been one, Kotaka-kun." Shizuka spat. "You do not know the isolation that you are attempting to justify."

"_Yes, _Mito, _I _know _nothing _about isolation." Kotaka hissed back. The two glared at each other in an impasse for a few moments. Shizuka realized that she had made a tactical error in that argument, but he had intended to provoke her. They were both at fault. However, she did not want to be the first to apologize.

About five minutes of forced silence later, she remembered that it was _Madara _she was talking to. She would be the one apologizing first if there would be any apology. It was times like this that she was reminded of the fact that even before he left, she and Madara had not gotten along well. She had been the one to suggest the ceasefire, after all, she should be the one to fix this.

"...I apologize for my thoughtless comment, Kotaka-kun." She said. "I was upset by your comments, and spoke without considering the implications of my words." Kotaka inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Understood." He said. "Now, how should we go about the next few years?"

Shizuka blinked, realizing that Kotaka was letting her outline a plan. Well, she did know modern Konohagakure better. Perhaps this was his form of offering an apology. "Well, the Shinobi Academy begins to accept children at age six. We should both join up then, I think. Obviously, we tell nobody about who we are. Make friends if we can, do what basic training we can without seeming suspicious. If we don't see Minato-san before we enter the Academy, he should be there. We shouldn't be too outstanding when it comes to school, but there are always a few unusual prodigies a year. At twelve, we'll be placed on genin teams, overseen by a jounin. That will be the time to start developing a clearer style-we should try not to specialize in the exact same things as what we did in our last lives."

"That goes without saying." Kotaka snorted. "I do not think that the name of Uchiha Madara is seen very well in Konohagakure..."

"It isn't." Shizuka confirmed. "But the Uchiha, last I knew, were a well-respected clan in the village. They run the Military police, and one of Kushina-chan's closest friends was Uchiha Mikoto, a girl around her age who was showing amazing promise."

"...you speak about this Kushina as if she was your own child." Kotaka noted. Shizuka shrugged.

"More of a grandchild, but your comment is accurate. After she was chosen as the next jinchuuriki, the opinion of those who knew toward her...darkened. She preferred to spend time with one of the only people she knew who would not talk about her as if she was a weapon or a monster, and I loved to spend time with one so young and full of life."

"I never understood why so many people like children." Kotaka sighed.

"You never met any real children, Kotaka." Shizuka pointed out. "We all were children in the dark ages, and we grew up far too soon. That is what makes children like Kushina-chan, or Naruto-kun, so precious. They will become shinobi soon enough-but they still smile."

"I still don't see it." Kotaka said, face deadpan. Shizuka chuckled.

"I wasn't really expecting you to. We should probably get some sleep, Kotaka-kun."

Years passed. Naruto was growing up full of life-and full of mischief as well, to the chagrin of Shizuka when she ended up dragged into whatever antics the blond was currently enacting. Kotaka, conversely, tended to isolate himself from the other children and speak as little as possible.

This, of course, did not save him from the whirlwind of cheerful destruction that was Uzumaki Naruto, and Shizuka couldn't stop herself from collapsing in giggles at the sight of the always-stoic boy absolutely soaked through, hair plastered to his skull from the amount of water in it. It was oddly like looking at a kitten that had just been given a bath, down to the murderous expression on his face.

Naruto, next to him, chuckled sheepishly. "Well, how was I s'posed to know it would make that much water, dattebayo?"

Kotaka merely glared at the world.

Later that year, the three of them entered the Shinobi Academy. While Kotaka, on the first day, simply observed everyone from his seat in the back of the classroom, this simply did not cut it for Naruto. He had to run around to pretty much every student, introducing himself and often dragging Shizuka along behind them.

_Wham. _"Ow!"

It was probably inevitable that they run into somebody at some point. While Naruto climbed to his feet, Shizuka offered a hand to the other boy, who had also been knocked down. "Sorry about him, he's just excited. I'm Kinyomi Shizuka, what's your...name?" She paused for a second when registering that the boy looked a lot like a more angular, taller Naruto with longer hair and glasses. _Hello, Yondaime-san. _

"Ah..Raiden Arashi." The boy said, sheepishly grinning. "I should have been paying more attention anyway."

"Oh, sorry, dattebayo!" Naruto said. The barely-concealed double-take that Arashi took upon hearing 'dattebayo' would have fooled most ninja, but Shizuka clearly felt his shock and joy...and amusement. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet ya!"

"Raiden Arashi, and likewise." Arashi smiled. "We should probably get in our seats now, don't you think? Class will start any minute."

"Oh! Right!" Naruto grinned, bouncing off to lead the way to the seats. When she was sure the hyperactive blond wasn't looking at him, Shizuka's hands flew in the old ANBU hand-signals.

_Yondaime-san?_

The boy's eyes widened behind the thick glasses he wore. Upon a closer look, Shizuka could notice that they were actually fake glasses that had plastic lenses-but nobody else had to know that, now did they?

_Mito-sama, I presume?_

Shizuka smiled. _Of course. Good to see you are well-I was worried when you did not show up at the same time as he and I did. _She punctuated that with a nod towards Kotaka, who was sitting absolutely silently.

_I see. _Arashi replied. _And was that boy really-_

_Yes. _Shizuka smiled. _It's not easy, being a jinchuuriki, but he handles it better than anyone I have met. _

"Class! Could you sit, please!" A young man with a scar across his nose said. Shizuka and Arashi jumped, hurrying to their seats.

In the next few minutes, Shizuka learned that his name was Umino Iruka, he would be one of their teachers over the next few years, and then they were told to stand up and say their name for the class. Shizuka blinked. Because of her and Arashi's conversation, they had been consigned to the front seats, the most dreaded destination in any classroom.

Well, that seemed to be the attitude the other children were taking, anyway. Shizuka could feel the nervousness emanating from them. She shrugged, standing up.

"Hello...my name is Kinyomi Shizuka, and it is a pleasure to meet you all." She sat again, as Arashi stood. After him was a small girl with short, light pink hair that hang over her forehead into her eyes.

"Um...hi! My name is Haruno Sakura!" She smiled, somewhat unsurely, and then quickly sat back down. The class continued. There were a few clan names that Shizuka recognized like old friends-an Inuzaka, not yet old enough for a puppy; A Nara, a Yamanaka, and an Akimichi, ever the three-way alliance that had always made them formidable; An Aburame, sitting quietly on his own; and then a Hyuuga, who spoke so quietly that it was hard to make out her name-_Hinata. _One Uchiha in their class, a slightly cheerful but focused boy named Sasuke-probably after Sarutobi Sasuke, who she had known fairly well (although she knew his son Hiruzen better, of course).

It would be an interesting group to be part of, eventually to be on teams with, to watch dwindle...she cut her train of thought off there. They would kill and be killed soon enough. She didn't have to worry about it-with any luck, it would be years before they knew the horrors of slaughter.

As it turned out, luck did not hold for either of the young Uzumaki (or, well, the Uzumaki and the Kinyomi). Shizuka was long familiar with the bizarre twists that the luck of the Uzumaki took, but she had somehow expected them to be absent in this second chance.

No such luck, of course. It was late one night, a few weeks after they first had entered the Academy, when Shizuka was returning to her room after a drink of water. Sharp emotions and raised voices caught her attention, and she crept closer to the caretakers' office.

"Well, he can't stay here. He's training as a shinobi, for the love of-"

"What is Sandaime-sama thinking, training something like him to kill? It's bad enough that he killed the Yondaime, can't he just die quickly?"

Shizuka's eyes widened. _Oh, let's hope that Arashi doesn't hear that..._She had only known the Yondaime for a few weeks, but his protectiveness of his son was, frankly, obvious if you knew what you were looking for.

She peered into the room, where quite a few of the caretakers were having a heated discussion. She almost regretted that there was no alcohol in the room-that meant that this was probably a serious discussion, and that all of the people were at their usual functioning capabilities.

"You can't do that-you know how the Hokage takes hostility against the brat."

"What Sandaime-sama doesn't know won't hurt him..."

"You're talking about mild treason, you realize. We can't hurt the demon brat. Use your head."

Shizuka sighed in relief. So Sandaime's proclamations had gotten through their heads. She began to move on to her room, but further conversation stopped her.

"Well, nobody says that we have to _keep _the bastard."

"That's right. It was bad enough before, but with him knowing how to fight? That's a danger to the other children. Sure, he seems fine-he's fooled that little girl, Shizuka, well enough. What would happen if she gets hurt? She's one of the kindest children here, and I know some of the younger girls look up to her. Sure, she's a bit antisocial, but..."

Okay, no. No. They were _not _using her as an excuse to keep ostracizing Naruto. _Especially _not to kick him out of the orphanage.

But...what could she do? Any defense of him would be taken as a sign, according to them, that he was an even greater threat. Trying to act hostile towards him might help this issue, but betraying her young friend was not an option. And if Naruto was made to leave...well, she trusted that he could survive. But he shouldn't _have _to survive on his own. It wasn't _right. _Hashirama wouldn't have stood for it. Tobirama...wouldn't have stood for it, although he might have understood their reasons. Sarutobi wouldn't stand for it if and when he heard, although she _knew _from feelings and whispers on the street that he had to be busy now, too busy to be bothered with inconsequential news about an Academy student.

So was she going to stand for it?

As Kushina would have said, _hell no._

Shizuka straightened herself up, taking a deep breath. Alright, she couldn't stop them from kicking out Naruto without making things worse. But she was going to make sure he didn't have to go out there alone.

Of course, if they really were just talking about it, she didn't want to alarm anyone. So she waited.

They were not just talking about it, and two days later Naruto came up, a cheerful smile plastered on his face, to say goodbye. her response, of course, was to run into her room, shove all her important things and the money she had into a small satchel, and state, "I'm coming with you."

And when Kinyomi Shizuka decided on something, she _decided _on it.

Thus begun the hardest two years of their pre-ninja lives.

**Thank you for reading, please review!**


	4. Chapter 2

**Here's the second part of Shizuka and Naruto in Konoha-next up is Sunagakure. Just a note, in case I forgot to say it earlier, everyone isn't exactly reliable when I'm writing through their eyes, ****_especially _****not Kotaka/Madara right now. I hope I can convey that well enough; they all see the world differently thanks to their experiences. **

**Can't draw, not male, not Kishimoto, do not own.**

**Also, wow, 22 followers-I want to hug all of you, I never thought that I'd get this much notice! I'll try to reply to reviews in PMs, but in case I can't tell you that way, a big thank you from me right now. **

**Chapter Two**

Living on the streets is hard. Especially so when you are six years old. Having someone else to rely on helped, and having a place to go for most of the day every day helped too.

Understandably, Arashi was livid when they told him.

"They what?" The yell from the usually quiet boy was enough to turn the heads of almost all the students, who were on lunch break. Shizuka waved the stares away as the spectacled boy hastily lowered his voice. "But-they can't do that! The orphanages of Konoha exist to take care of the orphaned children, so that we don't have children living alone on the streets! This is wrong!"

"It's okay, Arashi-kun, we'll be fine!" Naruto said, that fake smile still plastered on his face. Arashi blinked at this, looking at him.

"No, you won't." He said seriously. "You will be incredible."

Shizuka knew it would be a few years before Naruto could process what an odd statement this was from a six or seven year-old. As it was, Naruto's grin became quite a bit more genuine.

"You bet I will, dattebayo!" Naruto cheered. Arashi grinned for a moment, but sobered again.

"But really. If either of you need anything-anything-all you will ever have to do is ask." He said. "I can't promise that there's anything I can do, but..." He sighed helplessly. "I want to try. Anything I could do. Anything at all, and I would do it happily."

Both of them thanked him, but neither knew at that moment how often they would be calling on Arashi's offer. It was for a variety of reasons-sometimes just a little money, enough for cheap food-sometimes to help hide from the rare violent mob that found them before ANBU broke them up-or when the ANBU on-duty were more hostile than others. Sometimes it was just for someone to talk to.

Meanwhile, they also turned to Kotaka on occasion, for when much more grudging and snarky help was needed. Shizuka, however, couldn't help noticing that he did help. This was, she decided, a good sign.

Shinsei Kotaka had things of his own to ponder. It had started when he'd noticed the Uchiha in their class-Sasuke. A good name, he decided, and then had gotten a better look at the boy. He knew that nobody had noticed, but he swore his heart skipped a beat.

That resemblance to Izuna was uncanny. And this child was-well, stoic and focused, but cheerful. Izuna had never been that happy, and for a second he could see what Shizuka had meant. The idea that this child was allowed to be this-this-happy was astounding.

Of course, he was probably the only person who would consider Uchiha Sasuke a happy child, but the people who were his points of comparison were the adult children of the era of the Warring Clans. To others, Sasuke was a quiet and driven boy.

It was a few weeks later when Kotaka had spied Sasuke walking with his older brother, who was clad in the uniform that Kotaka knew to be the ANBU uniform. The brother appeared to be about thirteen-impressive.

Just as he expected from a member of the Uchiha.

Watching the brothers interact had been almost physically painful, though, especially when Sasuke started asking if the elder-Itachi-had time to train with him. Itachi sighed, and said regretfully that it would have to happen another time.

It was so familiar. Kotaka half wanted to shake the older boy and yell at him to train with his brother now. Who knew when he'd never get the chance to spend time with the boy again? Didn't he know how temporary shinobi life was?

But he couldn't. He just hoped that another time did come for the two brothers. And if anyone else ever learned of this thought process of his, he or she would have to face the wrath of the complete Susanoo.

A year later, the village of Konohagakure was shaken to its foundations by the bloody murder of the majority of the Uchiha clan by one of its most promising scions. The gossip-mongers of the streets clung to the pieces of information they received like gold nuggets, showing them off for the world to see. And, as things were wont to do, news trickled downward.

"What?" Seven-year-old Kinyomi Shizuka asked the bread-seller. The respectable woman turned up her nose at the dirty girl, dressed in worn clothes. If she looked closer, she would have noticed that there was not as much dirt as she had assumed, and that while the girl's clothes were worn, they also showed signs of regular good care. But she was intent on sharing her knowledge with as many people as possible.

"Of course, you wouldn't know. But I heard that the Uchiha prodigy, Itachi, went mad a few days ago. Killed his entire clan, except for his younger brother. The poor boy-the brother, of course, not that monster. I hear he's brilliant as well, but who knows what this has done to him..."

Who knows indeed. Shizuka frowned. This was not the right attitude to be taking. The last heir of one of the most powerful clans in history-Sasuke would be being used as a playing piece in politics for years to come. That was not going to go well for the recently traumatized boy. He needed serious counselling, not coddling!

She groaned. She knew the tendency of villages to 'leave well enough alone' and if Sasuke appeared to be coping fine, they would assume he was. The problem was that almost all of the Uchiha she had met dealt with trauma by shutting in on themselves and focussing on training, which was easily mistaken for coping well and moving on.

Hopefully the Yamanaka would know better, but even then it was awfully hard to get Uchiha to work through their issues. They seemed to default to a view that the trauma was automatically representative of the entire world, and that because the world didn't care about them, they didn't have to care about the world.

The key example was, of course, Madara, but Shizuka had actually seen him, now Kotaka, improve. Slightly. Naruto's unconditional friendliness toward him might have helped that along, at least in regards to his occasional kindnesses to the homeless Uzumaki. Of course, anything he did always came with disclaimers such as 'there wasn't anything else I was using this for' or 'if you can't get away from civilians by yourself...'

But anyway, this news only heralded bad things. It was odd for Uchiha to go mad in such a sudden, immediate way-she knew that many showed warning signs first, before renouncing their allegiance to the world. But it was totally possible that the signs had been missed.

She needed to get her hands on psychology books, and fast. She wasn't sure what she or the others could do to address the potential disaster which was this young, traumatized boy, but she intended to find out.

When she asked Kotaka about it, his face went carefully blank, and darkness billowed around his feelings again. Shizuka was so startled by the reminder of the boy's darker nature that she did not press the question.

As for Kotaka himself, he was angry. He'd seen the boy Itachi around town, working for the village, playing and sparring with his younger brother. But Itachi had...well...he'd turned his back on the village and everything he had worked for. Just like he, Kotaka, had, once upon a lifetime ago. Perhaps, like he had, Itachi had simply gotten tired of the distrusting stares, the whispered comments, the fact that nobody, nobody, would trust an Uchiha.

Perhaps he'd just decided that if balance couldn't be achieved by working together, well, then let it be evenly split. There was no point in trying to win over people who would hate you no matter what, so why not just be what they called you? You didn't have to hold back then, you didn't have to put up with their abuse. You could do something.

But killing the clan?

That had never been part of the reaction. That was not what you did, that didn't even the unfairness of the world but just increased it.

Kotaka had thought that Itachi was like him.

Life progressed. Shizuka and Naruto were skinny kids clad in rags, but they lived. Shizuka noticed with dark humor that they were quickly outstripping their classmates in speed and pain tolerance, although their strength and stamina were suffering. Malnutrition was, slowly, happening despite Shizuka's desperate efforts to stave it off.

They needed more food than they were getting. But Shizuka had no idea of how to get that, and it was becoming a more and more obvious problem. Dammit, she couldn't concentrate on important issues when she always had to worry about getting a full stomach and a place to sleep!

But, as it always did, luck swung back around for the legacy of Uzushiogakure. This upswing was marked first by the discovery of a restaurant known as Ichiraku Ramen.

It was when they were exhausted after another day of training, walking from the academy to a back alley where they had made a makeshift shelter. Naruto had that fake smile plastered on, as he almost always did these days. It couldn't fool Shizuka, who sensed a leaden heaviness in the boy's emotions.

She tried to keep his spirits up. She really did. But it was hard. She couldn't even manage to keep herself cheerful, most days. At one point, Naruto had found her staring at the Hokage monument-a habit of hers that she tended to keep secret, just because of it's oddity and the lack of a rational explanation for it.

To her surprise, Naruto just grinned. "It's gonna be my face up there some day, dattebayo!"

Shizuka raised her eyebrow. "Really, Naruto?"

"Yep! Everyone knows the Hokage! He's the strongest in the village! So one day I'm gonna be the Hokage, and then people will have to respect me!"

Shizuka paused, blinking. Alright, cause and effect were kind of getting confused here...but it was good for Naruto to have a goal, right? And if he matured, he would probably be a good Hokage. Plenty of mischievous, energetic kids became wonderful leaders. Cough, Hashirama, Hiruzen, cough.

But anyways, Ichiraku Ramen. As they walked to their makeshift shelter, both of the children smelled something delicious. Shizuka sighed. Often her love of ramen was seen as strange by other people, but it wasn't as if you got to choose your favorite foods. And ramen was delicious.

Their stomachs grumbled almost in unison. Naruto looked at his red-haired friend, surprised, which she looked sheepishly away.

"We should keep going, Naruto, we don't have enough money for ramen..." Or, really, any money at all.

"Yeah, dattebayo..." The dejected blond said. Unbeknownst to either, this exchange caught the attention of Teuchi, the cook and owner of Ichiraku Ramen. He looked up, seeing the duo-a red-haired girl with a serious expression and a boy with spiky blond hair, an obviously fake smile on his face.

Why did that look so familiar? Although, to be honest, it was more like the expressions were switched. Teuchi sighed, remembering the boy he had known for years who ended up becoming the Hokage, and the fiery redhead who was one of his best customers.

Well, these children obviously needed more food...and he was very well-off as a cook, and could afford giving away two bowls of ramen...

Shizuka tried to deny the offer when it was made, but her stomach undercut everything she said and made it incredibly hard to take her seriously. Two bowls of ramen later, the children were fuller than they had been in days.

"Thank you very much, Teuchi-san." Shizuka said, bowing deeply-much more deeply than the situation really warranted-from her seat. "I promise, as soon as we can, we will repay you for this."

"There's no need-" He said, knowing it was unlikely that these children would get the money to repay him any time soon, and when they did they would need it for themselves.

"No, really, dattebayo!" Naruto grinned. "We're gonna be awesome ninja, and then we can repay you! I'll be the Hokage, and Shizuka'll be my advisor!"

Shizuka raised an eyebrow at that. She didn't remember that part of the plan, although she supposed that she was honored.

Teuchi smiled. "I'm sure you will."

It was only three weeks later that a serious change to their living conditions happened. The two were sleeping under a tree in a little-used training ground, when around midnight Shizuka woke up. A figure was in her view, blurry from the sleep still in her eyes. She blinked a few times.

Wait...Saru? It was! Sarutobi Hiruzen, much older than she remembered, but still Saru. She bolted upright.

"Ah-Hokage-sama!" She said, bowing as best she could. "Naruto, Naruto, wake up! Sorry, sorry, Hokage-sama, we'll move, we just thought that because nobody ever uses this field-" In her mind, though, she was thinking along a completely different line. The Saru I knew would never kick two homeless children out of an orphanage. Let's see how he reacts.

"It's alright. I'm not going to make you leave." The elder version of Hiruzen said, sitting to put them closer to the same level. "What's your name?"

"Um...I'm Kinyomi Shizuka, Hokage-sama. And he-" She pointed to the waking Naruto "-is Uzumaki Naruto."

Confusion, sorrow, and anger were all present in Hiruzen, but Shizuka was proud to see the control he had over them. Tobirama would be proud. Probably. It was always hard to tell with her brother-in-law. He always followed logic first, but always seemed not to notice that other people didn't do that.

But anyway. Shizuka had to control her tendency towards tangents-she suspected it came from prolonged exposure to Senju Hashirama. Just like so many things. Not that she minded, at all. If she had minded his oddities she wouldn't have married the man.

Naruto was by now awake, and his blue eyes were wide. "Hokage-sama, dattebayo!"

"It is very nice to meet you, Shizuka-chan, Naruto-kun. Although I do have to ask why you are out in a training field in the middle of the night."

Alright. She knew how to play this. If Naruto would just start offering the information...sure enough, he was.

"The orphanage said they didn't want us anymore, 'ttebayo. Well, didn't want me, an' then Shizuka said she was coming too no matter what I said about it." Naruto's quirk showed up more often when he was sleepy, Shizuka had once noticed.

"The people there hated him. They said he was dangerous." Shizuka said. "But he isn't!" That was about the right level of indignant rage, she thought. She had plenty to spare, but there was a difference between an former outcast recognizing the treatment of another outcast and a child not understanding why another child was hated.

"They did, did they?" Hiruzen mused. Under his control, Shizuka felt his anger spike. Good, good, it was the same Saru that she remembered. "Well, we can't have children sleeping under trees, can we? They'll get sick, and if you two get sick you won't be able to become shinobi."

"How'd you know we wanted to be shinobi?" Naruto asked. Well, they have obviously been training, as Hiruzen says. Shizuka acted impressed, although she is mainly proud of the man's progress.

He decides that they will spend the rest of the night in one of the guest rooms in the Hokage Tower, and she nearly falls over when bowing in thanks. That night was the first time either of them slept in a bed for two years, and it was wonderful.

The next day, they went to the Academy and told Arashi and Kotaka what happened. Kotaka asked if this meant they'd stop running to him for help every time they get hurt, and Shizuka took it as the congratulations it was. Probably was. You could never tell with Kotaka. Arashi, of course, was ecstatic.

That day, Hiruzen also found them a place to live: two two-room apartments, fairly cheap but next to each other. He also managed to set up a monthly salary going to the two, for food and supplies, and Shizuka suspected that he also had set ANBU guards for them.

Well, for Naruto. Most of this was for Naruto, really-he was Minato's son, he was the kyuubi jinchuuriki. If she had been alone, they would have found a way to put her back in a better orphanage. But she was Naruto's friend, practically his sister at this point. So she would stay with him.

Practically his sister...It was an odd thought. But to be honest, she did think of Naruto as a brother-a silly younger brother. She had never had a brother before-well, she'd had a brother-in-law, but...that was different, and in terms of personality Tobirama and Naruto could not be more different.

But now, she had Naruto. And Arashi, and Kotaka when he was in a good mood and felt like making things difficult for other people by helping them out (she knew the only reason he pointed out errors on Naruto's work when they were working under the more biased teachers was to see the look of shock on their faces when Naruto got everything correct). She wasn't Uzumaki Mito; she was Kinyomi Shizuka.

And now she had a place to call home, and looked to be on pretty much smooth sailing until she became a genin.

Yes, all in all, things were going well.

**Please review, and the next chapter is still in progress but should be out in the next two weeks or so-I have finals coming up, so it might be a little delayed, but I'll try to get it. **


	5. Chapter 3

**Here's Suna, and Kushina as well. I'm trying to keep everyone in-character, so constructive criticism is really appreciated! Thank you to everyone who has followed, reviewed, or favorited this story, and I hope I can keep my writing up to your standards!**

**Disclaimer: Hello. My name is not Masashi Kishimoto. You did not kill my father. Prepare to die.**

When Uzumaki Kushina opened her eyes, she was lying in a bed, in a room that was obviously a hospital. Well, that was to be expected. As a child found alone, with what felt like a bad sunburn, she would naturally be taken to a place where she could receive medical attention. Afterwards, she would be probably shipped off to an orphanage, where adults would be looking after her and saying what happened to her until they deemed her old enough to decide for herself.

Well, that wasn't happening. Kushina knew that yes, she could probably trust adults who were specifically chosen to watch over children. She also knew that it was a very stupid, rash, impulsive idea to avoid the orphanage, which was probably where the jinchuuriki she needed to find was.

But...

She could take care of herself. She'd always been able to take care of herself. She could handle this. She'd survive.

She got out of the bed, padding over to the window after seeing that this room was empty. First floor. Good. Wonderful, dattebane.

It only took a moment to get out the window, another moment to have disappeared into the streets of Suna. She knew how to take care of herself. She was tough. She could do this.

Two weeks later, she was determinedly regretting nothing. Living on the street was tough, but if you were fast, you could steal enough to survive and be out of there before they could stop you. and Kushina was very good at being fast and running-if you wanted to keep up with Namikaze Minato, you had to be pretty fast, because even not counting Hiraishin, Minato was a very fast runner.

So she was surviving. It wasn't easy living-she was often hungry, and she had to sleep on hard ground, but...it was kind of nice, to be completely independant. She'd had to wait much longer for this when she was a child the first time.

The sound of voices from a small square caught her attention, and she peered in. a group of children, about her age, were playing with a ball. As she watched, one of them underestimated his strength and threw the ball up onto a high ledge. Of course, there were boos of disapproval from the other children.

"Oh, way ta go, Renji! Now we need a new ball." One of the boys pouted. The kids scowled, turning away from the ball and the ledge.

Then something very strange happened. A small tendril of sand reached up, grabbing the ball and carrying it down to a small boy, a little kid with auburn hair and blue-green eyes that were ringed with deep bags.

Deep...tanuki-like...rings...

Well that was easy. The moment the other children noticed the boy, though, they turned tail and ran. Even getting their ball back was not tempting enough to get them to go anywhere near the Ichibi. Kushina watched as the small jinchuuriki's face fell.

"Hey, dattebane. You wanna play catch?" She asked. The boy looked up, eyes wide, at the little red-haired girl. "My name's Uzu-" Wait, crap, gotta think of a new name! "-hana Akane." Nailed it!

"I'm Gaara." The boy said, looking at her as if she was the strangest creature in the world. "Do you really wanna play? Nobody plays with me."

Kushina, or now Akane, scowled. "Well then they're-" age-appropriate language, Akane, remember "-big...stupid...doodoo heads!"

She was happy to see that her poor substitute for swearing made Gaara smile. "So anyway, wanna play catch, 'ttebane?"

"O-Okay." Gaara said. "Um...here!" He tossed the ball to Akane, who caught it and threw it back at him. Before he could catch it, though, a wave of sand stopped the ball. "Sorry..." the young jinchuuriki said, hoping not to lose his new playmate. "It just does that..."

"Really?" Akane was intrigued. "That's cool! Well, now we can't really play catch..." She thought quickly, seeing the frown start to form on Gaara's face. "Hows about tag?"

"Tag?" Gaara asked.

When Yashamaru returned to the clearing to collect his young nephew, he was surprised to see the Kazekage's youngest son chasing a redhaired girl his own age, who was laughing. "C'mon, Gaara-kun, I know ya can catch me, dattebane!"

"You run fast, Akane-chan." Gaara pouted, and Yashamaru smiled to himself. It was good to see the boy acting his own age, playing with someone his age. He did wonder who this Akane's parents were, though, that they hadn't warned her away from the demon container. He sighed at the setting sun, jumping to the square where the two children were playing.

"Hello, Gaara-sama. Who's your friend?" He asked. Both children looked up.

"Hi, shinobi-san! My name's Uzuhana Akane, nice to meet ya, 'ttebane!" The girl proclaimed with a large grin. "What's your name?"

"That's Yashamaru-ji-san." Gaara said seriously. Akane hid her double-take well. That's a guy? She would have thought that after living in a village full of Hyuuga for most of one lifetime, she would be better at distinguishing feminine men from women, but...it was still tricky, dammit! "He takes care of me because father can't."

Akane frowned. Why the hell can't your own dad be bothered to take care of you? "Why can't he, 'ttebane?"

Gaara sighed. "He's the Kazekage, Akane-chan." he said it like it was obvious. "He's really busy. And he's also staying with Temari-nee-chan and Kankuro-nii-chan."

Now she was really confused. So, he wasn't too busy to raise two children, but he was too busy to raise three? And the one who was left off just happened to be the jinchuuriki? The only thing that was stopping her from fuming was the fact that all of this was undercut by Gaara's earnest expression was utterly adorable, and the eye circles just made his eyes seem bigger.

He was the fourth cutest child she had met-Naruto of course was first, despite how little time she had to see him, and Mikoto's little boys were next. But Gaara was a solid fourth, and was seriously considering passing Itachi.

Yes, she ranked small children she met in order of cuteness. Who didn't?

But anyway, she was supposed to be doing something. Right, being a small cute friend for Gaara's uncle. Who looked like a girl. Yeah, that. She pretended not to think that much about Gaara's last comment.

"Oh. Okay! Wow, your dad's really important, then." She grinned. "Does this mean I have to call ya 'Gaara-sama' too, dattebane?" Gaara frowned, although this time he seemed to be more annoyed.

"Please don't." he grumbled, and Akane laughed.

"I was just kidding, Gaara-kun! But that's cool, about your dad. He must be really strong." She gushed, just like any small child in a village would about their kage.

"He is." Gaara said. He didn't seem very proud-more...scared? She'd better be reading that wrong. She had better be reading that wrong. Deep breaths. Okay. Small children do not know the warning signs for abuse. Better stop talking about the Kazekage. "Who's your dad, Akane-chan?"

Um. "I...I don't have a dad. I never did. Mom used to say that he went away a long time ago. She didn't like him much, I think." That would work.

"Who's your mom, then?" Gaara blithely asked. She turned to study her feet, summoning a blush and starting to fidget.

"Mom...mom isn't here anymore. They took her away last winter. I told them she was just sleeping...she'd-she'd been tired for a long time...but they said that she wasn't, that she-she wouldn't wake up..." Summoning tears was easy enough, and she quickly tried to rub them out with clumsy childlike hands.

There was a silence, and Akane realized that she'd just given two males a young, crying girl to deal with. Oops. Eventually, she heard Yashamaru shift positions.

"Akane-chan, my sister, Gaara's mother, was also taken away." She looked up at this, drying her eyes.

"Really?" She asked, grey eyes wide.

"Everyone dies some day, Akane-chan. Your mother, my sister...but we have to go on, and if we're lucky, we'll see them again when it's our turn to go." Yashamaru was doing an admirable job of explaining death to a four-year-old, which was by no means an easy task.

Akane sniffled a few more times, and then made an impressive rebound. "A-alright. So, see you tomorrow, Gaara-kun?"

Gaara smiled and nodded after looking up at Yashamaru for confirmation. Akane smiled and headed off down the alley.

"Do you stay at the orphanage, Akane-chan?" Yashamaru asked. The girl paused, looking confused.

"The what? Oh, you mean the big place with the mean kids who wouldn't play with Gaara-kun and the stuffy people who tell you to sit down and be quiet."

Yashamaru blinked. That could describe either the school or the orphanage equally, and it was impossible to tell which she meant. In any case, she didn't appear to live at the orphanage.

"Where do you live, Akane-chan?" Yashamaru rephrased the question, and Akane looked at him as if he was crazy.

"In Suna, silly!"

"I mean-where do you sleep."

The petite redhead shrugged. "Wherever I can, dattebane."

Yashamaru blinked. So Gaara had finally made a real friend, and that friend happened to be a homeless, orphaned street rat.

Why did he have to be so much like his mother?

Even now, Gaara was tugging on his sleeve. He could grasp the idea that being homeless was Not A Good Thing, and Akane was his first friend, and she didn't seem to know that he was a jinchuuriki...

The ANBU member could feel a headache building. They did have a lot of room in the house on the outskirts of Suna that Kazekage-sama had exiled his youngest son to, and he just knew that Gaara would ask, and then he'd open his eyes in that wounded child look that always worked, and then he, Yashamaru, would have to explain to the Kazekage why a red-haired child was suddenly living with them, and that would not end well. It would probably be best if Gaara and Akane continued to be friends in a way that drew as little of Yondaime-sama's attention as possible.

Yashamaru would never come out and say that his brother-in-law blamed the Ichibi, and by extension Gaara, for Karura's death, but he could think it very loudly. It was the only way to explain the sheer neglect that he poured on the child.

"Yashamari-ji-"

"Gaara-sama, you know we can't. Your father would be angry." Gaara's face fell.

"Don't worry, Gaara-kun! I can take care of myself, and I'll see ya tomorrow!" Akane smiled, running off. Before she left sight, she turned around to wave again, before running again.

Yashamaru sighed. If he could, he would try to make sure that she got somewhere safe to life, but he had other responsibilities, and one ANBU member couldn't be everywhere. But perhaps he could drop a word to one of his colleagues about the Kazekage's son having a friend, and about maybe watching over the little girl. He did have a few favors he could call in.

Days passed. Akane did show up every day to play with Gaara, just like she said. One day, Suna was hit by a rare thunderstorm. Yashamaru refused to let Gaara out-in the desert, lightning was a very real danger, and nothing would hurt his nephew if he could help it. Gaara was, of course, upset-he insisted that Akane would miss him. Yashamaru hoped that the girl had the sense to get somewhere sheltered for the storm, but the more he thought about it the more he doubted it.

"You know what, Gaara-sama? I'll go see if Akane-chan is waiting at your square. She's probably inside, where you should stay." He didn't really worry about Gaara sneaking out-he was not his sister (and here Yashamaru shuddered at the thought of multiple Temari). however, it didn't hurt to be careful.

Travelling through the village during a thunderstorm was a strange experience. The streets were bare and empty, the sand turning to odd, gritty mud. His feet splashed in puddles as he moved to the small square where Gaara and Akane played.

Karura had loved the thunderstorms when they came. She had no fear, dancing out in the rain as if there was nowhere she'd rather be. When Akihiro had first seen his fellow genin out in the thunderstorm, he had freaked out, insisting that she was going to get herself killed. Yashamaru had shrugged at the young jiton user, telling him that was just how Karura was.

That was when they were just Kinkaze Akihiro, Sorano Karura, and Sorano Yashamaru-not a Kazekage, a gravestone, and an ANBU member.

He shook his head to remove it from the past and landed in the square where Akane and Gaara regularly played, hoping that Akane had seen sense and gone somewhere sheltered.

"Yashamaru-san!"

...of course. Yashamaru looked over at the little girl who was standing in the square, grinning at the sight of him. He felt the sudden urge to slam his head against a wall and curse children with no common sense. Perhaps this was karmic revenge for all the things that he, Karura, and Akihiro put their sensei through.

"Hello, Akane-chan. What are you doing out in the storm?"

"What're you doing out in the storm? I'm waiting for Gaara!" Akane replied cheerfully. "But he hasn't shown up yet. Do you know where he is?"

"He has to stay inside, it's dangerous out here in a thunderstorm. " Yashamaru tried to explain. "You need to find someplace to stay, too. You could get hurt out here." Akane blinks up at him, and for a moment her eyes seem much older than she is.

"Where would I go?" She asks, and Yashamaru winces. He knows that she stubbornly refuses the orphanage every time he offers, and wonders what made her hate trusting most adults as much as she does. The obvious answer springs to mind, and he sighs.

It takes him a moment to make this decision, and he knows that if the Kazekage catches wind of this, he'd be livid. Akihiro would have understood, but his brother-in-law wasn't Akihiro anymore, he hadn't been for years, not since the recession got bad. "Come with me. You can stay at Gaara and my house for the storm." She stares up at him and the hand he is offering, but thunder roars again and she nods to herself.

"Okay, Yashamaru-san." She says, taking the hand. He doesn't waste time, running through the city slowly enough for her to keep up but faster than normal, pulling her behind him. When they reach the house on the outskirts of Suna, they are both absolutely drenched with water, but Yashamaru sees Gaara's face in the window and watches as his nephew's face breaks in a massive grin.

It's good for Gaara, to have friends.

Once Akane is dried off-and dressed in old clothes of Gaara's, which actually fit her-the two children sat about playing. Thanks to the new location, it doesn't take long for Akane to suggest Hide-And-Seek. Given Gaara's familiarity with the house, you'd think it would be totally one-sided, but Akane was surprisingly resourceful and a good climber (as Yashamaru found out when she wedged herself on top of a large dresser and nearly gave him a heart attack).

When night was near but the storm showed no signs of abating, Yashamaru was reminded by Akane's yawns that not all children were chronic insomniacs. "Gaara, Akane-chan should probably go to sleep now..." Gaara's face fell, and Akane looked confused.

"Aren't you tired, Gaara?" She asks, tilting her head. Gaara frowns.

"I don't sleep. If I do, the monster in my head will eat me..." Gaara sighed, and Akane blinked once. Yashamaru winced, realizing that no, Akane apparently had never known about the Ichibi in Gaara's head.

"That sucks!" She said. "Is that why your eyes are so black and circley?" Yashamaru was positive that 'circley' was not a word, but it made Gaara smile. "Cuz when I don't sleep for a while i get these weird black circles under my eyes. Looks kinda like a tanuki! But yours look more like a tanuki, no fair!"

...children. While Yashamaru was sure that Akane was making much more sense in her own head, she had just gone from Gaara having insomnia to pouting about how he looked more like a tanuki. Gaara, on the other hand, seemed to find this hilarious.

"Okay, y'know what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna stay up with you! Betcha I can stay up longer!" Akane's tiredness seemed to have evaporated, and she also didn't seem to have grasped the concept of insomnia, especially Gaara's form of it. But Yashamaru knew from the orphanage conversations that there was no changing Akane's mind when she decided on something.

The next morning, Yashamaru woke to clear skies and silence. Yawning, he made his way into the main room, where Gaara was seated on a couch. Akane was slumped against him, her head in his lap, dead to the world. She was snoring lightly, he noticed with a grin.

"She couldn't stay awake..." Gaara said solemnly.

"I didn't think she would be able to." Yashamaru admitted. "But you can't argue with that one, you know?" Gaara laughed at that, a small chuckle.

"...Yashamaru-ji-san?" Gaara asked. "...What's it like, having a sister?" he saw looking at the sleeping redhead in his lap contemplatively.

Yashamaru opened his mouth to say that Gaara had a sister, but shut it again. Gaara had talked to Temari at most three times since he had been born-if there was any fraternal bond there, it was very weak. "Well...it's like having a best friend, except they get on your nerves a lot more. But there are things that only you two will know about each other, jokes only you two will ever get, and no matter whether or not you want to, you'll never forget each other." He paused, memories welling up and draining away. Suddenly he was very sad for the bonds that Gaara's isolation had kept him from.

Temari wouldn't have any teasing stories from Gaara's childhood to relate, because she wasn't there for them. Kankuro and Gaara wouldn't be able to laugh about shared experiences-they hadn't had any.

"I see." Gaara answered, and Yashamaru sighed.

"I have to go report to Kazekage-sama. When Akane-chan wakes up, you can go play in your square, okay? Make sure to have a good breakfast first, though. And make sure she eats, too-she's very thin."

It was when they were six, going on seven, that Yashamaru recieved a suicide mission from the Kazekage. He could not refuse-he was an ANBU of Sunagakure, compelled to serve the Kazekage. The packet of explosive tags was heavy in his hand as he reviewed the lies he would have to spin.

"Karura...I'm sorry."

**On that note, please leave a review! The next chapter should be up in the next two weeks. **

**To all the people who were worried about the prevalence of Akkiou and Tenkou in the story, from now on they basically only show up if things are about to go very wrong or if I need a way to make people's lives more complicated. At least one thing they've done so far actually has serious unintended consequences, so...**


	6. Chapter 4

**So sorry about missing last update time, the end of school made life stressful and then there were camps and things and I've only gotten around to posting this now! So many apologies from Rogue to you. **

**A/N: swiggity swown I do not own.**

**And for the record, I could not resist doing that. **

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Chapter Four

It was about five in the afternoon, and Akane had just turned around. She's become used to walking with Gaara on the way back to his house, and skipped happily downhill (well, down-dune? What do you even say?) away, happy. It was great, to have a friend. She remembered her friendship with Mikoto being somewhat like this, but Mikoto didn't like running around and goofing off as much as she did, while Gaara liked it more and loved playing games.

And that was about where her thoughts were derailed by an explosion from the area of Gaara's house.

Panicking, Akane dropped all pretense, racing back uphill with speed no normal six-year-old could match. Just because she had lower chakra and worse coordination didn't mean she'd forgotten all her skills. When she reached the top, stumbling occasionally because kami she should have actually practiced this more often, her eyes widened.

She'd never been a good sensor, but it didn't take much ability to tell when biju chakra was being used, especially not if you'd been a jinchuuriki at one point (a group consisting of pretty much only Uzumaki Kushina, seeing as Mito was a jinchuuriki even in her second life). Right now, everything she saw and heard screamed 'biju taken over JINCHUURIKI DOWN JINCHUURIKI DOWN RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!'

In the corner of the clearing was a bloodstained corpse that looked vaguely familiar, but Akane was a bit too preoccupied by the small, localized sandstorm to pay it more than a cursory glance. Wonderful-whatever happened, it was bad enough to cause Gaara to start letting the Ichibi out. Shit.

Without giving it a second thought, Akane ran towards the center of the swirling sand, wincing as it began to cut into her. I'll heal. I always do. Uzumaki, remember? Not Uzuhana or whatever. I am Uzumaki Kushina, and I will help this kid if it is the last-thing-I-do!

She clawed her way to a small circle of calm in the center, where a high keening noise was coming from Gaara. The auburn-haired boy was curled up into a small ball in the center of it, hands clutching at his hair. Akane was there in an instant, pulling his hands into hers and trying her best to hold him, although he started thrashing the moment she touched him.

"Gaara! Gaara, it's me, Akane! Gaara, what happened, it's okay, I'm here, Gaara it's me, I'm here for you, Gaara, please-" She wasn't even quite sure what she was saying anymore, only that Gaara was starting to look up at her. His eyes were wide and quite insane-looking, and there was a deep cut above his eye that she knew would scar. But he seemed to know who she was.

"Akane-no, go away!" He yelled, yanking himself backwards. She didn't let him pull away, keeping a firm grip on his wrists. "I'll just hurt you, I hurt everyone, I'm a monster-"

Something snapped in Akane, and she was aware that her voice was ice-cold. "Who told you that?" She asked, and something in her tone made him look at her, made the sand around them stop for a moment. "Who told you that? Who dared say something like that to a seven-year-old? I will kill them, those bastards-" She quickly realised that this was not the right way to comfort a hysterical child, especially not when you were a child yourself. "You are not a monster. You are not. You are Kinkaze Gaara and you are my best friend, and if anyone says differently I will show them what a monster really is."

Okay, still not exactly S-ranked comforting skills, but it seemed to work, as Gaara practically threw himself at her and buried his head in her shirt, sobs racking his small frame. She hugged him close and waited, rubbing his back and trying not to cry herself, or run off and kill someone, whichever would make her feel better at the moment.

She'd thought the bloodlust would leave with the Kyuubi, but nope, apparently not. It seemed that she actually just liked fighting that much, who knew? Anyway, that was to consider later. Now, she had a sobbing friend to look after.

When Gaara was finished soaking her shirt, Akane let him pull back. "Now. What happened?"

Gaara told her.

Killing a man seemed to be a more appealing option by the second. The Kazekage was testing the emotional conditioning of a mentally-unstable child with chronic insomnia. And he had to know that Gaara didn't have a proper seal-Akane had seen it once, and it looked like it was the seal for a biju in an inanimate object. No wonder he couldn't sleep.

Akane did not like the Kazekage. Not at all.

"That's bullshit." She said, when he finished. "Mothers love their children-whether or not their children are jinchuuriki. If your mom was as awesome as everyone says she was, then she would care about you no matter what."

"...you're sure?' Gaara asked.

"Positive." Akane nodded. "Now-what do we do?"

Gaara blinked. "I don't want to be alone..." he whispered. "I don't want to be all alone in my house..."

"Then I'll stay there with you. And we'll join the Shinobi Academy and we'll be the strongest ninja in all Sunagakure, just to show them all. And then we'll be heroes and nobody will call you names again. Sound like a plan?"

Gaara looked up at her, and he almost smiled for a moment. "It sounds like a good plan."

The first thing to deal with was the fact that the Kazekage had sent ANBU over to check on Gaara. Akane hid herself, figuring that she'd do best to keep her friendship with Gaara under wraps for as long as possible. While Gaara was taken to see the Kazekage, Akane started planning.

The first order of business was that seal. Once, she'd known a good bit about all sorts of seals, but she hadn't used them much after making jonin, letting Minato work with those while she worked with the Kyuubi to fight. So she needed to start reading up on them as much as possible, so that she could see how to fix Gaara's without letting the Shukaku out. Oh god, that would take work...

Next was entering the Academy. She had no doubt that everyone would avoid Gaara like the plague, but she would be there. Maybe if they saw a normal kid interacting with him normally, they'd get over themselves and actually accept that he was a kid like them.

And then there was the Kazekage to deal with. Akane knew that the man had to be having a hard time, what with Suna's recession, but there was understandable precautions and then there was sealing a demon into your own child without greater extenuating circumstances. She added the last part hastily.

Well, there wasn't much a child could do about the Kazekage. Whatever revenge would come would have to happen later, and of course there was always the old saying that living well was the best revenge. If Akane had any say in it, Gaara would be living as well as possible for a jinchuuriki. It did seem a very unsatisfying form of revenge, but...

And here I am, musing about revenge. Perhaps I should check for signs of the Sharingan. She laughed to herself.

The next day, Akane decided that she would be doing something about the long nights that Gaara kept. He would still be living in the isolated house, with someone checking on him every few days. Akane figured she could get out of the way about that often. But something did have to be done about the long nights Gaara spent alone, especially now.

Yashamaru's betrayal and death had changed Gaara. There was an odd intentness in him now, and he smiled less. He was also very, very clingy, and Akane was the main focus of this. In a way, she could understand. To survive as a jinchuuriki a person needed to always know that someone didn't care, someone loved them anyway. Akane was now the only source of that affection Gaara had-but seven hours a day, unless certain measures were taken, he would be alone.

Not going to happen.

So she bought a coffee maker, and quite a lot of coffee beans. She had Gaara's 'upkeep pay' to use, after all, and spending the Kazekage's money made her very happy. After that came the rather amusing business of two children trying to figure out how to work the machine, which was later named 'The Infernal Contraption.'

"I don't think it's supposed to do that." Gaara said blankly. Akane looked at the sticky, brown mess that covered the walls and floor-and them.

"Niether do I. Let's get this clean before any of your babysitters show up."

That fall, they enter the Academy. It is exactly as awkward as Akane predicted, as everyone seems to be scared of Gaara, up to and including the teachers. In the infuriating way of people everywhere, their method of dealing with this seemed to be acting like he didn't exist.

Akane did not take well to this.

"Sensei, you forgot to put Gaara on a team!"

The teacher was not a bad person. He just knew, somewhere inside him, that putting the demon boy on one team might be bad for the other students. And, somewhere deep inside of her, Akane disagreed.

That was the first time she got into trouble at school.

The times did escalate quickly, and soon the children noticed that actually, the so-called 'demon boy' was much less disruptive than the girl he ran around with. It only took them a while more to realize that Akane's antics, while disruptive, were also quite amusing. It is the natural inclination of students to see teachers as a common enemy, and Akane was amusing.

However, it took the red-haired pair two years to meet their first real friend.

Suna was slightly less focused on the 'kuonichi lessons' than Konoha was, but they still existed. And Akane still had to suffer through them. She was pretty sure, this time around, that she would be reviving the Uzushiogakure art of fuuinjutsu, anyway, and she would be absolute crap at anything remotely like a seduction mission.

It was the third week of the separate classes when Akane met Narita Matsuri. It was somewhat surprising that she hadn't seen the girl before , given the bright colors she seemed to favor. But she was incredibly shy and reticent, so perhaps it was not so odd.

It was when Akane was waiting for Gaara to get out of the boys' classes that she noticed Matsuri had found her way to the swing, morosely swinging on her own in the universal way of lonely kids. The redhead frowned, heading over there. Gaara would understand if she wasn't right outside the door.

"Hey, what's your name?" She asked, skipping up to the girl. The small girl looked up, seeming surprised.

"Ah-I'm Matsuri, Narita Matsuri."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Uzuhana Akane!" Akane smiled, offering a hand for the girl to shake. "Hey, swinging by yourself like that isn't much fun. Wanna push?"

Matsuri's eyes widened again, and she nodded. "Thank you!"Akane grinned in response, and started seeing exactly how high she could get Matsuri on the swings.

A bell annonced the arrival of the boys, and Akane blinked. "Hey, Matsuri, wanna meet my friend Gaara?"

Matsuri paused a moment at the name, and drew back. Akane sighed.

"Oh come on! He's really nice, he's just shy because everyone's always mean to him! He's not going to bite."

"Hey Gaara! Gaara!" Akane tugged the small girl in brightly-colored clothes through the crowd until she saw a familiar head of auburn hair.

"Akane?" Gaara asked, turning, and his eyes widened when he saw Matsuri, who was attempting to hide. "Akane, what are you doing?"

"This is Matsuri! She was playing on the swing so I decided to help push her!" Akane grinned. Matsuri peeked out from behind her, waving shyly.

"Um...hi?" She asked, bowing quickly.

Gaara looked at her for a moment before giving a bow back. "Nice to meet you, Matsuri. I'm Gaara."

Matsuri eyed him again for any sign of possible demon-ness, and apparently found none, as she moved out from behind Akane and offered a tentative smile. Gaara's lips lifted slightly in response, and Akane felt like punching the air.

Akane had always been sure to read slightly more than was normal for a kid her age, both to refresh her memory of basic skills that were no longer ingrained into her mind and to lend credibility to the thought that she was a genius-a thought she needed people to have if her experimenting with sealing wouldn't draw suspicion. And experiment she did, as soon as she found a book of seals in the library.

"What're you reading?" Matsuri asked, running up as Gaara and Akane entered the schoolyard. Akane had her nose in a very large book, and was turning pages as she walked.

"Wha-oh, hi!" The redhead waved, dog-earing the page and closing the book. "Look, it's a book on seals! They're really, really cool-Gaara, they're cool, right?"

Gaara shrugged, and Akane pouted. "No, look what I did earlier!" She pulled a small scroll with a design scrawled on it out of her pocket. "Okay, get out of the way. When I push chakra into it, like this-"

A kunai flew out of the design, into a nearby tree. "It does that, see? See?"

"Akane!"

Akane blinked, unused to Gaara raising his voice. "What? I just-" She turned to see Matsuri shaking, clearly terrified for some reason. "Matsuri-chan? What's wrong?"

"I-I-" The sandy-haired girl shook her head quickly, wrapping her arms around herself as she sunk to the ground. "I-"

"Matsuri?"Gaara sat next to the girl, seeming unsure of what to do. Akane quickly moved to join them.

After Matsuri calmed down slightly, she explained. "I-I don't like weapons. I really, really don't like weapons. But I still want to help people, and I wanna be a shinobi, but I'm just really, really scared of weapons..."

Akane blinked. "Well, there are plenty of ways to do that! Is it just blades, or-"

"Mostly? I dunno-" Matsuri was starting to look kind of hopeful. "I mean, I heard there were some kinds of ninjutsu that controlled the wind or the ground, and that sounds cool, not scary, but when I see a knife I just freeze up-"

Gaara blinked down at her. "So don't use knives. And if we're using them in class, my sand will take care of you like it takes care of me, okay?"

Matsuri looked at him for a moment, before tackling him in a hug. Akane hid a smile, and re-sealed her kunai in her scroll.

It was about half a year later when a tall girl with four pigtails pulled Akane aside.

"Hey!" She scowled, and then looked again at the girl. She looked very familiar-oh! She was Temari-Gaara's older sister. "What do you want?"

"You're friends with Gaara, right?" Temari asked. Akane scowled.

"Yeah, why-oh! You're his sister, aren't you?"

Temari flushed and looked away, which did not improve the younger girl's mood in the slightest. "...maybe."

"Why don't I ever see you, then? He lives all by himself up on a hill, where are you?"

Temari glared at Akane, who glared back.

"I was just going to ask if he was happy, but if you're going to yell-"

"Ask him yourself!"

There was a tense moment, before Temari broke eye contact.

"Father says I can't talk to him. He's dangerous. He killed Mama and Yashamaru-ji-san and he'll kill me too if I get too close to him." She spat the words out as if they were choking her.

"That's stupid." Akane said. Internally, she guessed she understood the older girl, but still... "I've known him since I was four, and he's never hurt me once!"

"...Never?" Temari asked.

"Nope. Never." The redhead affirmed.

"But he's got a demon in him."

"So?"

"So...I don't know." Temari huffed. "But Father says he's dangerous."

Akane blinked. "So why do you care if he's happy?"

Temari turned away.

"Hey! I asked a question!"

"I don't know, okay!" The daughter of the Kazekage started walking away. Akane paused, and then opened her mouth.

"He's pretty happy, but he's lonely a lot!" She yelled after the tall girl, who showed no sign of hearing her.

But the next day, when Akane and Gaara were in Gaara's house, a tentative knock sounded on the door. Gaara frowned, covering one of his eyes. Akane blinked, noticing that he was using the technique that he had just developed. I still can't believe that the sand acts as an eye as well...

After a moment, he nearly fell off his chair, running to the door. He pulled it open, and there was silence for a moment.

"...Temari...-san?" Akane could hear Gaara's hesitation, unsure of what honorific to use for his elder sister.

"...Gaara-kun." Temari replied, exactly as awkward as her brother. There was silence for another moment.

"Um... do you want to come in? We have coffee, and I think cookies somewhere..." Gaara offered.

"Yeah...yeah, I guess." Temari said, after a moment, as Akane ran to get the cookies.

When she returned, the siblings were sitting across from each other, and the silence was so thick that Akane wanted to slam a Rasengan into it-although that would require her first to learn Rasengan and second to not be nine years old.

"...Father doesn't know I'm here." Temari said after another moment, shifting awkwardly. "But...I guess I wanted to visit?"

Gaara tilted his head. "Why?" He realized how this must have sounded, and his eyes widened. "I mean, ah..."

"I don't know! And I've been saying that way too often lately. So I wanted to know." Temari said, seeming frustrated with herself. "And I know that makes no sense, shut up!"

"Okay...nee-chan. Cookies?" Gaara made the term sound almost like a question, but Akane caught Temari's quick smile. Grinning herself, she grabbed her book on seals and left the room. Might as well let the siblings have their moment.

Meanwhile, she had seals to study.

She remembered when she was little, fuuinjutsu had just been this thing that her parents did, which always seemed so boring. It was only scribbles on paper, after all. She didn't see why Minato was so shocked by even the bit that she knew about seals, and was overjoyed when, for his birthday, she gave him a bunch of old books her mother had brought from Uzushiogakure.

But now, after she'd seen what Minato did with those books, she was enthralled. There was so much power in these scribbles, and so much could be done with them. There were even theories that it was the first type of jutsu, as the Rikudou used it to seal the Juubi inside himself. And that wasn't all you could do. You could hide weapons anywhere you could stick a design, you could store energy, you could do almost anything!

Why, why, why had she focused everything on controlling the Kyuubi-Kurama? This was so cool!

"Akane?" Gaara asked, and she looked up. "Temari-nii's gone..."

She blinked, before standing up. "Okay! Hey, I got an idea-what if you could carry around even more sand, but without it weighing more?"

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**Alright, if you want to see a bit more of my writing, go to the-winged-ones-stories on tumblr, where I should be posting things. Ask questions if you want, see my rambling if you're interested...**

**And please, review!**


	7. Chapter 5

**Alright, now we move to Kumogakure and the one reincarnated shinobi who is an OC-also, incidentally, my least favorite to write, although I haven't really tried either Senju yet. **

**More notes at the end of the chapter**

**A/N: Nope, not Kishimoto.**

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Chapter Five: Kumogakure

When Hyuuga Hikako regained consciousness, the first thing she did was try to activate her Byakugan under her eyelids, to check her surroundings.

Key word: try.

Hyuuga were trained from birth not to overly react to anything. Joy, Pain-all should be met with proper stoicism. Which was probably the only reason that Hikako did not scream.

Her eyes were on fire.

Her eyes.

Her Byakugan eyes.

The source of all her power.

Were.

On.

Fire.

Gasping, she opened her eyes, and saw nothing. Nothing. Slowly, slowly, the burn abated, but the world was still black.

What was happening.

Cautiously, she performed the familiar chakra channelling that would activate her Byakugan. At first, nothing happened, but then slowly the world swam into focus. Immediately she scowled-there was no all-seeing vision, definitely. But a glance at her own hands showed that her tenketsu points were shining as brightly as ever.

But somehow, the Byakugan's all-penetrating, 360-degree vision was gone. Scowling, she deactivated her eyes. Fortunately, this time her vision did not fade as well, and she looked around the room. There was a mirror near the wall, and she moved to look in it. From her size, she was around six years old, and a faint red spiral showed on her forehead. The really surprising thing, however, were her eyes, which were a deep purple color. Where pupils normally would be were now lavender dots.

What happened. Frantically, she activated her eyes and looked back in the mirror. Her chakra was about the level that was normal for a six-year-old,except around her eyes. There, a massive reservoir of red chakra was welded on to the chakra fuelling her eyes by a small black link, causing the red-demonic?-chakra to mix with the blue chakra that she had normally to form a deep purple color. Now that it was active, the red chakra was leaking even more into the purple, dying her pupils crimson.

Well, that wasn't supposed to happen. Hikako scowled. From what she understood, the demon chakra was supposed to be a backup, not a permanent part of her system. And it certainly wasn't supposed to change her dojutsu.

"Oh! You're awake!" A voice said, and she quickly deactivated her eyes. Turning, she saw a tall woman with dark skin and light hair smiling at her. Well, at least I know that I'm in Kumogakure. "We've been worried-you've been out for almost three days. , after they found you in the 's your name?"

Hikako blinked. "Murasaki Yukino." She improvised, looking up at the woman. "Where am I?"

"Nice to meet you, Yukino-chan. You are in Kumogakure, and my name is Oharashi Airi. You were found on the Kiri border, did you know?"

Kiri border. Okay, that was good. She knew a bit about the border between the lands of lightning and water, although it had been centuries since she'd actually been there.

"I-I'm not in Kiri anymore?" She asked, being sure to let her voice quiver. As long as she was a small girl with long, rather bedraggled hair and odd but large eyes, she would play it up for as much sympathy as she could. The second she hit puberty, all of that would be shot, so she'd use it while she could. "Oh, good, oh thank you-"

"Were your family killed, too?" Airi asked quietly, and Hikako, now Yukino, seized the excuse. She knew that Kiri was historically hostile to kekkei genkai, possibly because the land of water had some of the most disturbing abilities she had encountered. This was a perfect explanation.

"Y-yes-they said my eyes were evil and that I should be killed and mama said no but then they got her too-" It took a moment to bring tears to her eyes, but she could act well enough.

"Your eyes?" Airi asked quietly, and Yukino raised her hands to shield her face. "I won't hurt you, Yukino-chan. I just want to see what your eyes are."

Cautiously, Yukino lowered her hands, letting Airi see her odd purple eyes. "Father had eyes like me, but Mama didn't. He also did this thing where they started glowing, but I can't do that yet..."

Airi was getting a calculating look on her face, and Yukino inwardly approved. This woman was now handed the chance to get a new kekkei genkai for her village, of course she was plotting.

"Do you remember what your father called his eyes, Yukino-chan?"

Yukino frowned, trying to think of a name. Recalling the likely source of the Byakugan's warping, she nodded to herself. "I think it was-Akumagan?"

Weeks passed, and Yukino was not placed in an orphanage-she was adopted, actually, by Airi's clan. Nobody wanted to put a child with a possibly powerful kekkei genkai into an orphanage.

Yukino kept her eyes open as she was led through hallways and rooms. The clan house was rather large, and her technical position in it was a ward of the Oharashi clan. She had a small but nice room, with a window that would give her a great view of any oncoming storms. Of course, she had nothing to put in the room, but the bookshelves against the wall were full and the bed was comfortable.

A tentative knock sounded on the door.

"Come in!" She said, turning.

The knocker was a girl about her age, a little taller, with the odd mix of dark skin and pale hair that many Kumo residents seemed to have.

"Ah-I heard that there was another girl here-" The newcomer said, her hands locked behind her back. "My name's Oharashi Kazui, and, um, my aunt Airi told me about you? And I just thought I would say hi, I guess-"

Oh, dear. Yukino was torn between sympathy and amusement at the other girl. Social interaction was hard, sometimes.

"I'm Murasaki Yukino, nice to meet you." She said, smiling. "I'm glad there's someone else my age here."

Kazui stopped staring at the floor for a moment to hesitantly smile, and Yukino mentally patted herself on the back. Apparently that was the right thing to do in this situation.

"So, uh...do you want to see the rest of the clan complex? There's a training ground where my brother is sometimes and then there's the main building and if you go to the roof you can see the Raikage's tower-" Kazui stopped herself quickly. "Sorry, I talk a lot, just tell me to shut up if you don't want me to..."

"I'd love to see the complex." Yukino said, and Kazui brightened again.

"Okay! Follow me, I guess." She started off down the hall, and Yukino followed behind her, looking around. "So, you have a ability thing too?"

Yukino blinked. "Yes-I mean, my father always said that eyes like this were really special, and had been passed down in our family for years, so I guess so? Airi-san called it a kekkei genkai."

Kazui blinked. "Yeah, that! My family's got one too, the Arashiton! I can't do anything with it, but aniki can and he's really, really cool!" She seemed to light up when she talked about her brother, but Yukino knew what hero-worship looked like.

"Arashiton?" Yukino asked. She vaguely remembered it herself.

"I think it's what you get when you mix water and, uh, lightning?" Kazui frowned for a moment. "It's really cool, though. I'll show you when I get good enough, okay?"

"Okay." the shorter girl agreed. "And I'll show you my Akumagan." Kazui blinked at that, and then grinned.

"Great! I'll take you to meet aniki if he is training, okay?"

Yukino nodded-best to meet most of this odd clan that had adopted her. Kazui flickered back and forth between confidant-when she was talking about other people-and shy, when she was doing anything else. But there was no reserve there, which was very strange to deal with. Her whole life, in her clan and in the village at large, had been one giant mess of looking for hidden meanings.

Madara, at least, had been direct. He told her what his expectations were and she told him what hers were, and then neither of them ever had held duplicity towards the other. There was no need to-he didn't need to be lied to because the things she needed to lie about never concerned him. They both lied, certainly, but their purposes toward each other had been direct. Forge an alliance.

But here, this girl had no real reservation-what she did, she seemed to do wholeheartedly. It was strange.

It was a bit of a relief.

"Oh! Kazui! You met Yukino-chan!" Airi had found them, and Yukino was pulled back into the real world.

"Hello, Airi-san." She said, bowing, and Airi laughed.

"Oh, none of that-Airi is fine. Has Kazui been showing you the building?"

"Yes-thank you for the room, the view is wonderful. I like it." Yukino admitted. These people were being honest with her, she could make some effort in return. It was harder than she had thought it would be-any Hyuuga would have left it at the view is remarkable.

But she wasn't a Hyuuga any longer. She didn't even have the Byakugan as a reminder-she was here, with no background, an eye jutsu she knew nothing about, and a new life to start. Well, at least that much she wouldn't have to feign.

"I'll take you to meet Mikuru and Kokoro-they're Kazui's parents, our clan leaders." Airi said, and Kazui perked up.

"Airi-ba-san, could I go see Darui-nii? Please?" Kazui asked. Airi laughed.

"You know you're not supposed to bother Darui-kun when he's training-but I suppose he wouldn't mind, just this once." She smiled at her young-niece? Probably niece-and Kazui eagerly ran off.

It was about then that Yukino decided that she would lie as little as possible. The more one lied, the more stress keeping the charades going taxed a person, and too much anxiety could manifest in many noticeable ways. As a Hyuuga, she'd been trained to detect the body language of her peers, so non-Hyuuga posed less of a challenge. Although right now, it seemed that she wouldn't have to do much body-reading at all, with people as direct as this.

Airi stopped at a door, and Yukino pulled herself out of her thoughts again.

"Are you alright, Yukino-chan? It's a lot to take in, I know." Airi smiled. The pale-skinned girl shrugged.

"I think a lot." She explained, blinking. "And right now there's a lot to think about, so..."

"I see. Alright, time to meet the big shots." Airi offered an encouraging hand on the shoulder, and Yukino stopped her habitual shrug to remove it. She'd never really known physical expressions of support-well, she knew them, but she didn't experience them very often. The kuonichi knocked on the door once before pushing it open.

"Hey, Mikuru!" She called. This room-which was actually a series of different rooms-was sparse, probably like the rest of the house. Yukino vaguely rememberd Kumo implementing very harsh training laws-the same sort of pragmatism must have gone into their lifestyle.

She had to say, she approved.

"Airi?" A tall man emerged from deep in the room. He had the same light hair and dark skin that seemed to be the trademark of every member of this clan, and his eyes were warm.

Yukino realized that there could not be a clan that she looked less like, and wasn't sure how she felt about that. No matter what, she would have been the one who was out of place-realizing that other people would be able to tell that at a glance as well was just rather sobering.

She had not signed up for this job to have a good time, though. She had signed up to help people and to aid this generation.

"So you must be Yukino." Mikuru, the man said. Yukino nodded, bowing.

"Thank you for letting me into your house, Oharashi-san." She said. "I hope that I will live up to your investment in me." She knew that she was not acting typical for her age, but there were explanations-from what she'd gathered, Kiri was going through a particularly bloody phase, and her fictious parents could have made sure that she grew up fast.

Her actual parents certainly had.

"No need for that, Yukino-chan-although I suspect you have gotten quite enough of that response, so I'll just thank you instead. I have no doubt that you will be exactly as successful as you want to be." Mikuru said.

As successful as you want to be. Well, she had just implied that she wanted to be successful enough to pay them back for feeding, clothing, and rooming her, as well as offering her the advantages of being, for all intents and purposes, a clan child. She also knew that a good amount of what they considered payment was, basically, the control of a bloodline completely new to Kumo. The rest would likely come out of a clan tithe that she would begin paying once she took missions.

It was a very intelligent system, and also encouraged success-the clan that had more shinobi completing high-paying jobs would be wealthier than the other clans, and they in turn paid a small fee to the village for security and for a place in deciding the affairs of the village on the council.

It was a month later that Yukino entered the Academy, alongside Kazui. The first few months was simple review, which Yukino used as a chance to get her body back to the level of conditioning she expected from herself. As she was a prepubescent child, of course, she could not really get to the state she wanted, but there was no harm in trying.

Other than possible muscle damage, but she was being careful.

She had a second project, on top of this. Much as in Konoha, in Kumo children were encouraged to race and play through the streets, learning them by heart and knowing them in the soles of their feet, cementing the home-court advantage they might have into their blood. Yukino used these games not only to observe her yearmates, but to look for someone.

Specifically, the young man named Killer Bee, the Hachibi-Gyuki?-jinchuuriki. Obviously, she no longer had the Byakugan, so she would have to improvise. However, she had to try to do something to avert the coming diplomatic fiasco between Kumo and Konoha, and save one of her descendants' lives in the process.

Improvisation was something that every ninja needed to learn, after all. So Yukino kept her eyes and ears open, and soon she heard about the Raikage's younger brother. People spoke about him almost with fondness, which surprised her. Apparently he spent his time training near the village.

Children were naturally curious, and Yukino knew that that could be her excuse if she was ever asked about this. Also, she had a distinct thought that whatever her eyes could do was linked to the bijuu, given the red chakra that was sitting behind her eyes.

She slipped out of the village easily enough, running down the path. It wasn't, in the end, very far from the village at all-ten minutes' walk. She wondered how much of the thunder she heard was actually the noise of a jinchuuriki training, and dismissed the thought.

Once she reached the valley, it did not take much to see the whirling mass of blades that was probably the jinchuuriki. Even trying to follow the motions of the-five? Six?-swords was giving her a headache, so she stopped trying. Instead, she activated the Akumagan, and blinked.

The shape of a large, tentacled bull rose above the man, its chakra melding seamlessly with his as he spun like a top, slicing rock spires apart. The beast didn't seem to be angry, either, and the chakra flowed naturally from him to the man instead of being pulled with force.

This had to be Killer Bee.

And if he was any kind of shinobi at all, he would have noticed her. He probably had, and was waiting to see what she'd do.

She was supposed to be six years old, so she peeked out from behind her rock, deactivating her eyes. She watched as the ball of steel slowed and, eventually, stopped, revealing a young man who was holding a total of seven swords-none of which were in his hands, which instead carried a notebook and pencil.

"Hey, little sis! Didn't your parents tell you not to leave the village?" he called. Yukino blinked, moving all the way out from behind the rock.

"I don't have parents anymore." She said. "Mikuru-san and Kokoro-san took me in. I heard that there was a really strong fighter who trains in this valley. Is that you?"

"You bet! The name's Killer Bee, baby, and I'm the strongest there is!" The former Hyuuga blinked. She could honestly say that she had never met a shinobi like him before, except perhaps Senju Hashirama confronted with a small child or a fluffy cat. And she was not remembering that, everyone present had agreed it never happened.

"I thought that the Raikage was the strongest." She said, moving to sit on top of the boulder instead of standing by it. Annoyingly, her legs were not as long as they would become, and dangled awkwardly. Killer Bee chuckled sheepishly.

"Yeah, Bro might have me beat there. What's your name?" She blinked.

"Murasaki Yukino." She replied. "But I am a ward of the Oharashi clan." She paused, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Hey, sis, what's that on your forehead?" Bee asked, drawing closer. Yukino had forgotten the spiral that Akkiou had drawn, and nearly hit herself. Of course, he could see that. He was a jinchuuriki, wasn't that the entire point?

Now-what would her best course of action be? Seeing as she no longer had the Byakugan, she couldn't say that and make it so that Kumo no longer felt the need to steal a Byakugan user. On the other hand, she did have a dojutsu, a unique one. If she could convince the Raikage's brother that it was valuable, he might decide that the Byakugan was not worth the risk of fighting Konoha.

Hopefully.

"I don't know. Father had it too, he said it had something to do with our eyes, our Akumagan. Something about demons, I don't know. I was little then." That was a tantalizing tidbit-anything that could control or influence a bijuu was always useful. "I can do some things with my eyes. I looked at you with them and I saw your chakra and I saw a giant bull-thing." And again. That was probably enough for now...

"Whoa, kid, you saw Gyuuki?" Bee asked, sitting on a nearby rock. Yukino frowned.

"Is Gyuuki-san that bull? Well, not a bull." She amended. "Bulls don't have that many tails. An Ushi-Oni?"

"Yeah! He was sealed into me when I was a kid. We used to fight a lot, but now we're friends, oh yeah!"

How did he have this much energy. She was six years old and he made her feel like an old grandmother.

Wait, he was friends with the bijuu? That was a new one to her.

"Sealed into you?" She asked. "Like he was a kunai and you were a scroll?"

Bee shrugged. "Not exactly, little sis. Hey, let's get you back to the village. Mikuru-san's gonna be worried about you, right?"

Yukino hadn't thought about that, but he might be. She shrugged, hopping off of the boulder. "I can walk back."

"Nah, can't let you do that!" Bee grinned. "Bro would have my hide if he heard that I left a kid out here on her own. And I needed a break from training anyway, baby!"

Yukino blinked but accepted the company. Killer Bee might be very strange, but he was eminently sufferable, and was actually rather amusing.

When they did reach the village, after some time marked mostly by Bee talking and Yukino listening, Bee grinned. "Alright, little sis, I'll drop you here." He put one fist out, and she looked at it in confusion. "Aw, don't tell me you've never had a fistbump before!"

Fistbump? She tilted her head, but stuck out her arm to touch her fist to his.

"There you go! See ya around, sis! Maybe next time you'll have found more things to do with those eyes of yours!" Bee waved, and Yukino waved back, vaguely unsure as to what just happened.

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**Alright, before anyone yells at me, I'm aware that I probably butchered Killer Bee. Please, please write in with advice on how to write him, because it's a lot trickier than I thought.**

**Also, the Akumagan comes from Akuma, meaning Demon. It was an unintentional corruption of the Byakugan, and is considerably less powerful. It also means Yukino has to be a lot more inventive. **

**Please, Review!**


	8. Chapter 6

**So here's chapter six, and next we move to Amegakure. After I finish setting up everyone, we're going to be going back to Konoha for when ****_Naruto _****proper starts out. Obviously, in Konoha, there are going to be quite a few changes. **

**A/N: I am not Kishimoto.**

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The next year, after the basics of taijustu and most tools were covered, the students of Kumogakure were taught the beginning of the Double Lariat. The Raikage himself and Killer Bee came to demonstrate, and Yukino saw hair all over the room stand on end due to the static discharge.

Killer Bee threw her a thumbs-up as he moved to the back of the room, and she smiled slightly. Oddly, she and the jinchuuriki seemed to be...friends? Well, Bee seemed to be friends with the whole world, but he would always spare a grin for Yukino, which was nice, she guessed.

Truthfully, she was still getting used to Kumogakure. She couldn't keep her usual reserve-it would seem incredibly foreign here. That wasn't to say that nobody here had reserve-they were shinobi-but they were more expressive than the Hyuuga were. Although that really didn't say much at all.

"Alright! Everyone pair off. First, you've all felt raiton chakra now. Focus on your own chakra, and draw it into your core to convert it. First, we'll practice converting chakra, then we move to the next step, practicing the Lariat without chakra. By the end of the month, you all will be able to perform the double lariat, albeit a much weaker one than the version Raikage-sama and Bee-sama can." H, the instructor, said. He was a tallish man, and was one of the pale-skinned residents of Kumo.

Yukino was actually very interested in the lariat-while giant, showy moves weren't always her style, she was a raiton-type, and this was a famous move. Also, learning things like this would help in developing her own style later.

After a week of practice converting chakra, they were told to pair off for practice of the lariat. Yukino and Kazui immediately stuck with each other, listening intently as the seals that were needed were explained. They weren't even channelling the lightning chakra at this point, instead just practicing the motion.

After a few passes, H separated them. "You two are badly matched-Yukino-chan, you're weaker in the upper body than Kazui-chan. You go pair with Arata-kun over there." He pointed, and a pale-skinned boy with hair so light it was nearly white waved his hand.

Yukino and Arata were much closer-matched-in fact, when it came to just the physical motions, they were almost perfectly balanced. Of course, everyone knew the real challenge came when lightning chakra was added.

As she and Arata rested from a pass, Yukino looked to the back of the room. Sure enough, Killer Bee and the Raikage had stuck around, and the Raikage was keeping an eye on her. Bee must have mentioned her bloodline to him.

Perhaps she should start using it a bit more, just to emphasize that she had something worthwhile here, something that would be adequate compensation for not getting a Byakugan. Bee looked up and, seeing her stare, waved. She nodded back.

"Hey, you know him?" Arata asked. "I'm Fuyubi Arata, by the way, I don't know if anyone said that..."

"Murasaki Yukino, and yes, Bee-san and I have met a few times." She decided against trying to explain how, but Arata seemed fine with that.

"Wow, that's cool! Bee-san is one of the strongest in the village, isn't he?" Arata's odd, purplish eyes were very wide. Yukino took a moment to actually take in the appearance of her companion. Fuyubi Arata was shortish, with spiky hair that was almost white and very pale skin, especially for Kumogakure. His eyes were an odd, reddish-purple color. He saw her looking and ducked his head, looking away and hunching inward slightly. Yukino knew the signs of a person who was ashamed of his appearance, and decided that she would leave some of the obvious questions be.

"I think so." She answered. "He has a rather unique style, certainly. I can't imagine many possible counters for a spinning electrocuted ball of swords that's rapping at you."

"Ha, that's true." Arata grinned. 'You're not that bad, Murasaki. C'mon, let's give this lariat another try!"

It was a few days later that Yukino got an official invitation to stand in front of Kumogakure's council. To be honest, she had been expecting this for years, almost. It only made sense that they would want to know about the new kekkei genkai that the village was hosting, and she didn't really tell many people about what she could do.

"Hey, little sis!"

…why was Bee there. He was supposed to be .

"Hello, Raikage-sama, honorable council...Bee-san." She bowed, trying not to show her exasperation. She wasn't sure whether or not his presence would make this easier or harder to deal with. "Is this about my eyes?"

Indeed, it was. Carefully, Yukino activated the secondary chakra networks around her eyes, making the pupils glow red. "My father had this kekkei genkai as well, he said that we were the only ones. He called it the Akumagan, the Demon Eye. When I look with it, I can see the chakra system of anyone I can look at, and I can also tell what element a chakra a person is using is." That was new, from the Byakugan. With that, demonic chakra was visibly red, but now red chakra was fire, while normal was pale blue, wind was green, lightning was yellow, water deep blue, and earth brown. "I am unsure as to whether or not I can see genjutsu yet, I suspect that it will take more practice." It suddenly occured to her that this was probably not the right way to be speaking when you were eight years old, but there wasn't much she could do about it now. She could just be incredibly mature for her age-which, to be fair, she was, so... "When I look at Bee-san, I also see above him his Ushi-Oni-Gyuki-san?"

She watched the council's reactions with interest. Many looked surprised, but the Raikage, A, did not—obviously Bee had told him about this. She scanned the rest of the room, and was surprised to see another ghostly animal hovering over the head of a young woman, with a long blonde and, she noticed, heterochromatic eyes—one blue and one green. Hovering above her was a hissing nekomata, shimmering with blue fire and lashing her two tails back and forth. The Nibi was now in Kumo, apparently.

"I also see your nekomata, kuonichi-san." She said, bowing slightly in the direction of the woman. "She is angry, unlike Bee-san's Gyuki-san." The woman seemed slightly surprised by being addressed at all.

"Told ya so, Bro! Yuki-chan can see the biju!" Bee said, and the Raikage nodded.

"Yukino-san, you said you could see different types of elemental chakra." He said. Yukino nodded, fairly sure that this was leading to a test. Of course, they would want some verification of this—it was only what made sense.

"Yes, Raikage-sama."

"Alright. Watch this using your Akumagan, and describe what you see." He paused, and then a shield of electricity crackled just over his skin. Yukino nodded.

"Alright. First, you gathered chakra in your core, here." She tapped her stomach. "After that, it shifted slightly—converting to ration chakra, and given how quick that was and the fact that the amount of chakra didn't change, I assume that's your chakra's nature. After that, the chakra branched out to all of your tenketsu points, and pushed out from there, where it converted into pure electricity."

She hesitated for a moment, but then decided to share one of her own guesses. "And Raikage-sama, seeing as my eyes give me the ability to see the technique as it's being performed, I suspect with practice that I would be able to predict the type, at least, of attack being used." If she could manage that, it would be almost like simulating a sharingan. Whatever else these eyes could do, they certainly helped when it came to analyzing attacks. It was almost like someone had taken the Byakugan and oriented it solely for battle, rather than reconnaissance.

The Raikage dispelled the technique, leaving a crackle of static electricity in the room, and Yukino after a moment deactivated the Akumagan. The imposing man considered for a moment, leaning back in his chair. "Bee, you were right about the implications of this kekkei genkai." Well, hopefully this was a good thing. "Thank you, Yukino-san. I expect we will be seeing more of you later." Meaning that he expected her to pass the test to become genin.

However, after that, her childhood returned to normal. There were mock-spars in the academy and further practice on the lariat, which they had just started the complete technique for. Of course, all of the versions showing up there were much weaker than the Raikage and Bee's, and it would be very hard to catch an enemy shinobi in one until they became much faster. But it was a quite powerful basic move to learn.

She and Arata were still a well-matched team, and gradually she learned a bit more about her yearmate. He did hero-worship Killer Bee for a reason that he never specified, and his mother was a shinobi as well, Fuyubi Kotone. He didn't have a father and she didn't press the issue, as it seemed to be touchy. He didn't look much like his mother, however, who did have pale skin but had honey-blonde hair and blue eyes instead of Arata's more albino-like complexion.

Meanwhile, Kazui was still improving. She continued to hero-worship Darui, with reason—he was one of the rising stars of his age group, and apparently the Raikage had his eye on him, which was perhaps the highest praise a person could get. The Raikage really emphasized strength, Yukino noticed.

When they were told to practice styles of fighting with various weapons, she was somewhat at a loss. Her previous fighting style had ignored weapons completely in favor of bare-hands fighting at close range. Of course, she was seen as a bit of a prodigy here, but entirely recreating jyuken would be pushing it a bit much. And she did want to expand her style to give herself a bit more reach.

She learned kunai and shuriken with the other students, and they were very useful, but that still wasn't quite what she was looking for. A weapon with reach, but one you still held. Not something crazy like a broadsword—something more dignified.

And then she thought of the naginata. It had wonderful reach while still offering the user a lot of control, and many had a metal core that chakra could easily be conducted through. The blade on the age was a good slashing or stabbing weapon, while the staff was heavy enough to do serious damage on its own. It was traditionally a dignified and well-regarded weapon.

In short, it was perfect.

Getting one was a bit more trouble, and Arata did laugh about her "katana on a stick" for a while, and it was heavy and needed a lot of practice, but practice was what everything needed if you were a shinobi. And more importantly, it was something she'd never tried before, and a challenge was exhilarating.

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**So, there you have it. If you do not know what a naginata is, 'katana on a stick' is kind of accurate. Google it, it's really a cool weapon. **


	9. Chapter Seven

**All of the apologies for how late this is, school has started and taking three Advanced Placement classes was not my brightest idea. I hope to be back on schedule soon!**

**For now, Hashirama.**

**Disclaimer: I am not Masashi Kishimoto. I am in high school. I doubt he is. **

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Chapter Seven: Amegakure

Senju Hashirama groaned, moving a hand to his forehead. Apparently reincarnation hurt worse than hangovers, who knew? He didn't, not before this. He noticed almost immediately when he smacked himself in the head that wow, all of his limbs were in proportions he definitely was not used to at all. He frowned to himself. His chakra system was much weaker than he remembered-he was about five years old, he guessed.

Wow...five. What was five like last time? I was getting to the age where father would send me out onto the field...he shivered, remembering Kawarama, Itama, the children lost too soon. Perhaps another childhood would be a good idea.

He laughed a little. It was a miracle that he hadn't ended up any more messed up than he was, all things considered. A good thing, but really kind of incredible.

"You're awake."

A young woman-a medic-nin, probably, was walking towards him. He grinned, pushing himself up on his forearms.

"Hey! Am I in Amegakure?" He asked. The woman held out a glass of water.

"Here, drink this, you're dehydrated. You must be thirsty. Yes, you're in Amegakure-what is your name? And where are your parents?"

Hashirama thought quickly. "Jurin Hiroki, nice to meet ya! And parents?" He paused. "I don't have any. Other kids have parents." And very lucky other kids have good parents. Alright, being five again might be digging up some buried annoyance at his father, which wasn't exactly a good thing, but he could deal. Senju Butsuma was not the ideal parent, but for the time he was fairly usual.

"I see." The woman said. "Very well, Hiroki-kun, my name is Iwamine Isa. Why did you want to be in Amegakure?" Isa was rather short and slightly pudgy, with dust-brown hair up in a ponytail and odd, indigo eyes. She seemed rather serious, Hashirama-Hiroki-thought.

"Well, I heard it was the only real city around here, and I thought it would be better than being all by myself." He justified. "And I wanted to be somewhere where there would be a lot more people."

"Well, I suppose there are more people in Amegakure than there would be in the country. You should count yourself lucky-Angel-sama found you collapsed on the street before anything unfortunate happened to you." She was checking her clipboard for something.

"Angel-sama, Iwamine-san?" Hiroki asked. That sounded rather odd. Isa gave him a strange look.

"You must have traveled far to not have heard of Angel-sama. Angel-sama is the messenger of Kami-sama, the ruler of Amegakure. He cannot leave the tallest tower, so she leaves for him to interact with the people." Isa stood. "I will go to report that you have woken."

Well that wasn't weird at all, Hiroki thought. A mysterious leader calling himself God with an angel messenger? On the other hand, though, this messenger would pick up a lost child and take him to a hospital, so perhaps it wasn't as bad as all that. It still was interesting, though. It was a mystery. And what kid didn't like mysteries?

Other than Tobirama, of course, but Hiroki suspected that Tobirama liked them in his own, restrained, Tobirama-esque way. He certainly always liked mental puzzles. Hiroki was no idiot, and he knew that mentally his younger brother had him beat hands-down. However, when it came to people...not so much.

It was the next day when Hiroki actually got a bit more story on Kami-sama and Angel-sama. Another of the medic-nin there, Kawara Ryuuichi, was considerably more open than Iwamine-san, and loved telling stories. It was easy enough to ask for how Kami-sama and Angel-sama came to Amegakure.

"Angel-sama and Kami-sama?" Ryuuichi asked, leaning back in his chair. "Well, that's a pretty sad story, Hiroki-kun."

"But I want to hear!" Hiroki protested. "Everyone else knows it!"

"That's true." The blue-haired doctor allowed. "Alright, okay. A long time ago, Ame no Kuni was in trouble. All the other lands used us as a battleground, and the third Shinobi World War destroyed our country. You can still see the ruins."

Hiroki winced. There had been three world wars? Apparently the peace he'd left the world with had not lasted at all. And this poor land was just a battlefield...

"Anyway, our leader then, Hanzou the Salamander, did nothing to save us. Until one day a group rose, led by Angel-sama and Kami-sama. Hanzou feared them, so he sold out the hope of Amegakure and allied with Konohagakure to get rid of them.

He and the Konoha ninja set a trap for Angel-sama and Kami-sama's group, and in the fight that ensued Kami-sama and Angel-sama suffered a great loss. Now Kami-sama resides in the tallest tower of Amegakure, but he watches us and sends out Angel-sama as his messenger." He smiled now, pointing to a symbol painted over the doorway—a lavender circle with concentric black rings inside it.

"That's why we have that symbol—it's the eye of Kami-sama, looking out for us."

Hiroki froze. Eye—then, a dojutsu, and the only dojutsu he knew that was reported to look like that was the Rinnegan, the legendary progenitor of the Sharingan.

This was not good. This was, possibly very bad. There was, in this city, a Rinnegan user with a very legitimate reason to hate Konohagakure. And speaking of that, since when did Konoha team up with someone who sounded like a dictator, to crush a group searching for greater freedom? Even if it was a mission, it should have been turned down for ethical reasons, getting too involved in the politics of another land. And if they 'suffered a great loss'-a wound, maybe?

So…what the hell happened? Even Tobirama wouldn't okay that one…probably…no, he wouldn't, he would see it as making potential enemies. Well, he might. But Hiroki was not here to discuss his brother's shortcomings, he was here to help things. But he couldn't say he was from Konoha, and he supposed that ruled out using the Mokuton as well, because that was very associated with Konoha.

So he'd have to find a different fighting style as well. That was fine—he was good at plenty other than the Mokuton, and he still had sage mode…

Did he still have sage mode? That was a good question. It was more of a state of mind and a skill than a set ability, but…

Well, he'd have to figure that out later. Right now, he actually had to give a plausible reaction to that story.

"That was mean of Hanzou. Why didn't he just do what was right for the village?' He asked. It was a legitimate question—why would you want to be the leader of a hidden village if you weren't going to do your best by it? Otherwise, wasn't the title meaningless?

"Perhaps he didn't want to bother." Ryuuichi said, which only made Hiroki more confused. Why…oh, nevermind.

"Okay…thank you, Kawara-san!" He smiled as the blue-haired doctor left the room, and then switched to a frown. So far, he'd discovered a Rinnegan user with a very real grudge against Konoha and a village that was totally devoted to him, because to be fair he seemed to be a very good leader. In any case, this was a mess.

It was the next day when he actually met Angel-sama. He was now allowed out of his bed, although they did want to keep him in the hospital for another day just to see if his dehydration had had any further complications. He was following Ryuuichi around when a tall woman in a black cloak waked in.

Hiroki looked up curiously. She had a single piercing, under her lip, and a face that seemed sad. Her hair was dark blue, and pulled up into a bun. When he saw her, Ryuuichi bowed, and Hiroki hastily followed suit.

"Hello, Angel-sama!" Ryuuichi grinned.

"Angel-sama." Iwamine-san had also entered the room and bowed. "To what do we owe the honor of this visit?"

The woman called Angel-sama spared a quick, sad smile for the two doctors. "I did wish to check on the condition of the child who I found on Tuesday—I see that you have already gotten back on your feet."

Hiroki blinked as he realized that the last statement was addressed to him. "Uh, yeah! Thank you, Angel-sama! I don't know what would've happened if I'd been out there much longer, but Iwamine-san said that it could have been really bad, so thanks!" He followed that with a smile.

Angel-sama blinked once. "You are welcome, although I would ask you to make sure that it does not happen again. Ame does not want to lose any more of her children."

Oh, that was frowned, but then brightened again."Got it! Thank you, Angel-sama!"

After that, Angel-sama moved to discuss something with Ryuuichi, who seemed to be the senior of the two scientists. Isa quietly left the room in the background, and so Hiroki was left to his own devices.

He headed for the door, to see if the rain had stopped. It hadn't, which he supposed didn't surprise him much. Something about it seemed off, though. He frowned, but he was no sensor—that had always been what Tobirama did, so there was no need for him to learn to do it that well. He supposed the rain could be jutsu-generated, or he could just be jumping at shadows.

Something flittered past his face, and he startled back. It looked like a butterfly, but there was something weird about it. He drew closer to see that it was made of paper, but flying around much like a normal butterfly would.

Weird…

"Hey, c'mere!" He said, holding out a hand in the creature's direction. "C'mere, little guy! I won't hurt you…"

He hadn't heard of any jutsu that animated paper, especially without seals. But this paper was rather plain origami paper, and after a moment, it alighted on his hand. "Wow…" He remembered that someone in the room—one of the doctors or Angel-sama—could hear him. "I wonder if you're one of those jutsu things shinobi do!" Angel-sama had had an origami flower in her hair, her remembered, of something that looked like this plain origami paper.

"Angel-sama seems nice." He thought out loud, under his breath. "But she's sad. But she likes the doctors, and I don't think she doesn't like me…" He frowned for a moment. "I wonder if I'll see her much again?"

The origami butterfly took off, until it landed on Angel-sama's shoulder. There, it flattened itself and turned black, melding into her coat.

Whoa! He'd thought that it might be her jutsu, but confirmation was still cool. So apparently Angel-sama did have some sort of paper jutsu, and given her status as second-in-command of a hidden village it was probably a very strong jutsu.

After she left, Hiroki bugged Ryuuichi for more stories, figuring the more he learned about Amegakure, the better. It turned out that the medic-nin was also jounin-level as a shinobi, and had one younger sister, Ryouko, who was a genin on her way to chuunin. Also, it turned out that the next day Hiroki would be transferred to the orphanage.

"And the hospital will actually be quiet again." Isa commented. Hiroki crumpled. Was he really such a pain, here? He was just trying to be friendly, but all he'd really done was annoy Isa…

"Oh, come on, Isa, now you've made him sad!" Ryuuichi scolded. "It's fine, Hiroki, it's nice to have someone to talk to, and you've certainly made this place more lively. Isa is just being a bit grumpy today."

Oh, okay! Perhaps Isa was just like Tobirama and didn't like it when things were too loud or energetic. That made a lot more sense.

He blinked after a moment. Wow, he thought that he'd mostly stopped those mood swings—except when they annoyed Tobirama, which was funny—when he'd hit puberty. Apparently they were back, along with his childhood.

Well, that would be interesting.

"Okay!" he smiled, popping back up. "I'm gonna miss you guys… this place is really cool, and it's great that you help people all the time!"

Ryuuichi laughed. "I'm sure you'll see us again sometime, Hiroki-kun."

The orphanage was a large building, well-worn but cared for. There were clearly a lot of children there, and within minutes Hiroki was noticed by one of the taller ones.

"Hi there, I'm Uzune Rei." The red-haired girl stuck one of her hands out, and he shook it. "You're the new kid here, right? Well, I'm going to be helping you settle in for a bit, okay?"

"..okay! I'm Jurin Hiroki, nice to meet you!" He smiled. Rei nodded.

"Got it! Because there are lots of kids here, we have to take care of ourselves, otherwise Hitori-san would have too much work to do. He's the one who runs this whole place. But all us older kids have a group of kids like you who we watch out for. I'm not gonna be here all day, because I'm about to graduate from the Academy and then I'm gonna be busy training. But when I am here, just come to me if you need anything. If I'm not, ask one of the other kids in our group, you'll meet them in a sec." Rei spoke very quickly, and she walked faster than she talked. Hiroki had to run to keep up with her.

The inside of the building was painted in bright colors, and seemed very cheerful. Rei showed him to a small room with four bunk beds. "This is where the guys in our group stay. Over there, there's an empty bunk if you don't mind the top."

"Nope! Top's fine! Thank you, Rei-chan!" he grinned at the taller girl, and then scowled when she ruffled his hair. She laughed. "Alright, let's meet the guys."

She took off again, leading him to a large room where a bunch of kids were gathered. "HEY! TEAM UZUNE! MEETUP TIME!"

At this, some of the kids popped up, disappearing into the labyrinth of corridors that seemed to make up the orphanage. Rei grinned. "They're off getting the others, I'll take you to the meetup place."

Hiroki did his best to remember the path they took this time, but the corridors were very windy and he lost track at the first narrow staircase they took. After two other sets of stairs and more hurrying along hallways, they came to a door with an orange spiral on it.

Huh, orange spiral….I wonder….He looked up at his red-haired companion and shook his head slightly. Nah, maybe not. In any case, this is an orphanage. I'm not sure if she would know herself.

"And here we are!" Rei grinned, pushing open the door. Hiroki's eyes widened. Apparently the group meetup spot was an open section of roof that had a rather beautiful view of Ame. He was fascinated by the tall skyscrapers—that was something he'd never thought of much, these were all taller even than the Hokage tower! Sure, he had constructs bigger than these, but something that people lived in, going all the way up to touch the sky…

"Great view, huh?" The redheaded girl laughed, pushing him out onto the roof. "Oh, hey Ryuuzaki."

Hiroki blinked as a small kid, probably about his age, stood up. The boy—or girl, he wasn't sure—was skinny, with a mop of black hair and large eyes. She-or-he was dressed in a baggy dark shirt and pants equally oversized.

"Rei-chan." The child nodded. "And…"

"Hi! I'm Jurin Hiroki, nice to meet you!" He grinned. The child (girl, he decided) looked at him evenly for a moment.

"Loud." She decided, and he crumpled again.

"Hey, don't let it bug you, that's just Ryuuzaki. She said something, so she at least thought you were interesting. She's Kurogane Ryuuzaki, and she's been here a long time." Rei explained. Meanwhile, the oddly-named girl had returned to perching on the edge of the balcony. From the hall behind them, the sound of running feet could be heard. "And there are the others!"

A group of other kids came pouring through, some dragging others along and some running on their own. It seemed like full-on sprint was the general mode of travel in this area. First was a boy with long turquoise hair, dragging a white-haired girl behind him. Close on their heels was a dark-haired boy with a large grin and a girl with purple hair and a determined look. Two black-haired kids, probably twins, followed and behind them, at a more leisurely pace, came a green-haired girl and a blond boy holding on to a blanket—rather odd at about six, but whatever.

"Alright, people!" Rei clapped her hands, and everyone found seats on the balcony. Hiroki, unsure of what to do, stood next to Rei and gave his best smile. "We've got a new kid today—this is Jurin Hiroki. Okay, sound off!"

The white-haired girl raised her hand, her green eyes shining cheerfully . "I'm Akagi Hiyoko, nice to meet ya!"

Next to her, the boy with turquoise hair sprang out of his seat. "I am the great Conqueror of the Crimson Heart! I am pleased to find another member of our band of companions, and cannot wait to aid you on your own noble quest!"

"He's Tousaka Yoshio." Hiyoko explained, tugging him back into his seat. "And that's his way of saying nice to meet you."

"…I'm Sakazaki Amaya." The purple-haired girl spoke up, looking at him intently. "What's your story?"

"Later, nee-chan!" The black-haired boy cut across her. Hiroki blinked when he noticed that the boy had clouded eyes—was he blind? "Let the rest of us talk to him first! I'm Sakazaki Yuudai, nice to meet you! Sorry about her…"

"I was just curious!" Amaya scowled.

"Guys, stop!" One of the black-haired kids, a girl, scowled. "I'm Isshu Kasumi, nice to meet you, and he's Isshu Satoshi." She pointed to the boy beside her who waved cheerfully. "He doesn't talk, so I do it for both of us! And ignore those two, they're always fighting."

"Are not!" Both Amaya and Yuudai chimed, and then glared at each other.

"Anyway!" Rei yelled, bringing immediate quiet. "Nageko, you next."

"I'm Kazeshiro Nageko." The green-haired girl said quietly. She was holding a book protectively under one arm, and frowned at her groupmates.

"Uhm, I'm Tetsu Shouta." The blond boy with the blanket said quietly, shrinking in to himself. Rei grinned, clapping again.

"So there you go! Hiyoko and Yoshio, Amaya and Yuudai, Kasumi and Satoshi, and Nageko and Shouta. And then Ryuuzaki, of course, and me! The amazing almost-genin Uzune Rei!" She grinned. "You'll be rooming with Satoshi, Yuudai, Shouta, and Yoshio. You're about six, right? So you're in the same age group as most of these guys. Which of you wants to show Hiroki here around while I'm gone?"

Hiyoko and Yuudai's hands hit the air at the same time.

"Alright. Any questions, go to those two." Rei said. "To get to our meeting place, follow the orange spirals on the walls. They're my sign, each of the group heads have one. If any of the genin are doing D-ranks here, don't bug 'em too much. They're helping out, after all. Just tell them if they're gonna do something stupid. Got it? Good. Team, break!"

The kids scattered again, Nageko and Shouta disappearing quickly down the stairs to get out of the drizzle while the black-haired twins—Kasumi and Satoshi, Hiroki reminded himself—headed down as well. Hiyoko grinned, heading over to him. Rei also headed off down the stairs.

"So, hi! I'm Hiyoko, as I think you heard, and Rei's gone off to her school." She grinned. "Any other questions? Rei can be hard to understand at first, she does everything so fast."

Hiroki blinked, considering. "Well, can you tell me a bit about what everyone here's like?"

Hiyoko laughed. "Well, you asked the right girl! I'm one of the guys who gets along with people easy, yaknow? So Yoshio and I got here together—we've been friends for a long time. I'm not sure what his deal is anyway, though—he always makes everything into some big adventure. He's really nice though. Amaya and Yuudai are siblings—Amaya is the younger one. Yuudai is blind, but he does some thing with sound that helps him get around. I dunno what it is, and when he tried to explain he kinda lost me. They argue all the time. Kasumi and Satoshi are both really happy all the time, but Satoshi can't talk and Kasumi is deaf—she lip-reads. Rei is Rei, you know about her probably. Nageko is really smart but kinda cold—I mean, she likes people but she always sounds really mean. Ryuuzaki is really smart but nobody knows what her deal is. She just showed up some day with no memory of before. And then Shouta is really shy and keeps falling asleep randomly, he's so funny!'

Hiroki blinked, not quite expecting that infodump. "And…why does Rei use orange spirals?"

Hiyoko shrugged. "She said that she liked them a lot."

Well, probably not an Uzumaki descendent then, Hiroki decided. It was good that this group seemed in general pretty nice, though!

"So…Rei is going to be a shinobi?" He asked. Hiyoko laughed.

"Yep! She's really psyched about it too! I want to do something else though—maybe be a medic, like Ryuuichi-san."

"You know Ryuuichi?" He blinked.

"Yep! His little sister's really nice whenever she comes by to do D-ranks over here! I'll point her out next time she shows up. She's gonna go to the chuunin exams soon!"

Hiyoko punched the air. "I bet she'll do great, too!"

"Thanks!" Hiroki grinned.

As days passed, the orphanage got slightly less confusing. Rei spent the majority of each day at the Acxademy, and one day she came home grinning, with a shiny new headband with four vertical lines on it—Amegakure's symbol.

The days were usually taken up by the crazy schemes of Team Uzune, to which Hiroki became an eager contributor. With the group, a raid into one of the other team's headquarters became a desperate crusade (courtesy of Yoshio), and a rainy day turned into a water fight for the ages (started by Yuudai and Hiroki himself).

And then, one day, the orphanage was gifted by a surprise day began with Hiroki being shaken awake by a very excited Yuudai.

"Hiroki! Hiroki, you won't believe who's here! C'mon, I need someone to describe her to me and Amaya won't do it! C'mon, wake up, please?"

Hiroki blinked the sleep out of his eyes, sitting up. "Yeah? What is it, Yuudai?"

The blind boy scowled, grabbing his arm. "Angel-sama is here! Come on!"

That got Hiroki out of bed pretty fast. Angel-sama was interesting, and besides, she was pretty much the only link anyone had to Kami-sama up in the tallest tower. And if Hiroki was going to do anything to help Amegakure's hatred of Konoha, he'd have to somehow figure out more about Kami-sama.

So of course he helped Yuudai wake up everyone else and was near the head of the charge down the hallway to the main room. Of course, apparently everyone else had gotten the same idea, so the entire orphanage was still like an overturned beehive. Similarly, many of the kids were too shy to go into the room where Angel-sama was talking to Hitori, the man in charge of the orphanage. Hiroki shoved his way into a spot where he could see into the room, grinning as Yuudai slid in next to him.

"What does she look like?" The raven-haired boy hissed. Hiroki frowned in concentration.

"Pretty tall. Black cloak. She's got blue hair, pulled up in a bun, with an origami flower in it. Her eyes are kind of orangeish I guess, and she's got a piercing under her bottom lip. She's kinda sad all the time, it seems like. Pale skin, pretty I guess." He finished, and Yuudai nodded, closing his eyes.

"Thanks, Hiroki! I think I got it!" He nodded again to himself. "Thank you!"

Hiroki nodded, looking around. Sure enough, he saw a few paper butterflies flitting around the room. Perhaps Angel-sama kept them around her, to scout out any potential danger while she was busy talking. That was smart, if she was so close to the leadership of the village.

Hiroki sighed. There were so many strange things about this village-the mysterious Kami-sama and his possible Rinnegan, the reason Konoha nin would attack a rebel group in an unallied town, Kami-sama and Angel-sama's friend who died, an orphanage full of disabled kids who seemed all determined to do something shinobi-related...maybe it was just normal for a rebuilding village. But Kami-sama...what kind of wound would take that long to heal? None of the orphanage kids had seen him in their memories, although some of the adults might have. Were there no medic-nin-but of course there were medic-nin, he knew them!

So...did Kami-sama ever have anyone check up on his wounds?

* * *

**He is surprisingly fun to write for, actually. **

**In any case, please drop a review if you have the time, and the next chapter should be up in two weeks!**


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